Recordings reveal repeated police requests for PM to testify on Bild leak affair were rebuffed

Recordings aired by Israeli television on Wednesday appeared to show police repeatedly attempting to coordinate a brief testimony from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding investigations involving his aides, only to be repeatedly rebuffed by staff in his office.

According to Channel 12 news, investigators sought to ask Netanyahu whether he informed senior media adviser Jonatan Urich that former media adviser Eli Feldstein had been arrested in the Bild leaked document affair. Police are said to have believed that Netanyahu’s answer could help determine whether Urich knowingly destroyed evidence by replacing and wiping his phone after Feldstein’s arrest.

Investigators also wanted to question Netanyahu about a late-night meeting between his former chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, and Feldstein before the latter’s arrest, the network added. Feldstein has alleged that Braverman warned him about the investigation into the leak of a classified military document to Germany’s Bild newspaper and suggested he could stop the probe, an allegation Braverman denies.

In the recordings, police investigators repeatedly stress that they need only a short statement from the prime minister, while Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Ido Norden, can be heard responding that Netanyahu is too busy and postpones scheduling his testimony.

“I don’t even have a second to discuss this. We don’t have time. It’s irrelevant. Let’s get organized, and maybe we’ll figure it out,” Norden can be heard saying, to the investigator’s frustration.

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Asked if Netanyahu is aware police want to speak with him, Norden responds, “No, he doesn’t need to know about it. I manage his schedule and am telling you there is nowhere at all to put this.” Pressed further, Norden tells the investigator to speak with Netanyahu’s lawyers.

Investigators also spoke to Netanyahu’s adviser, Nevo Katz, and were met with similar responses.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not comment on the report, which came nearly a month after Urich was charged with transmitting classified information with the intent to harm state security, over his involvement in leaking classified documents to the press. The charge relates to Urich’s role in the leak of a classified document from IDF military intelligence to the Bild newspaper in September 2024, apparently as part of an effort to buttress Netanyahu’s claim that it was Hamas, not the prime minister, that was holding up a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

The document — an internal Hamas memo obtained by IDF intelligence that ostensibly suggested the terror group was not interested in a hostage deal — was allegedly leaked to the German Bild newspaper in order to bypass Israel’s military censor. The memo was some nine months old when it was leaked, and media reports later indicated that Bild had distorted the file to serve the interests of the Netanyahu government.

The indictment alleged that Urich, together with Feldstein, leaked the document they obtained from IDF Military Intelligence NCO Ari Rosenfeld, knowing it was classified and that the military censor had blocked its publication in Israel, “while taking a real risk that critical security interests would be harmed” by the leak.

Braverman is also expected to be indicted, pending a hearing, on charges of obstruction of justice and fraud and breach of trust, over a meeting he held with Feldstein in which he allegedly informed the latter about the investigation and said he could quash it.

Urich and Feldstein are both also suspects in the so-called Qatargate affair, in which they are alleged to have taken money to spearhead a public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, despite the Gulf state hosting the terror group.

Both the Bild and Qatargate affairs have become major political liabilities for Netanyahu, sparking accusations from critics regarding alleged conflicts of interest and graft among his closest advisers.