Israeli police question Netanyahu’s chief of staff under caution; confrontation with Feldstein possible

Tzachi Braverman, chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was detained this Sunday for questioning under caution by the Lahav 433 unit on suspicion of obstruction of justice. Braverman’s questioning follows allegations made by Eli Feldstein, a former adviser to the prime minister, in an interview on Kan 11. Feldstein himself is also expected to be questioned, and police may conduct a face-to-face confrontation between the two. Prior to Braverman’s questioning, police carried out a search of his home.

In an interview with Omri Assenheim on the program “Yihyeh Tov” last month, Feldstein revealed a late-night meeting he said he had had with Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, in a parking garage at the Kirya military base. According to Feldstein, Braverman offered to thwart a security investigation that was underway into the Prime Minister’s Office—an affair that would later become known as the “Classified Documents Affair.” Feldstein said Braverman presented him with a list of officers and suggested “shutting down” an investigation into the Prime Minister’s Office that was being conducted by the Defense Ministry’s security authority (Malmab).

“Braverman called me in a frenzy on Saturday night,” Feldstein said in the interview. “We met on level minus four. He got into my car, took out a note with the names of IDF officers and asked if I knew them. He told me: ‘There’s an investigation by Malmab, it reaches the Prime Minister’s Office. Tell me if it’s connected to you, tell me if it’s connected to us. I can shut it down.’” According to Feldstein, the meaning of Braverman’s remarks was clear – an attempt to stop a sensitive security investigation before it escalated.

Feldstein: Netanyahu was behind the leak of the documents

In the second part of the interview, Feldstein claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu was aware of the classified document that was leaked to the German newspaper Bild and was behind the leak. “To release such a document, the prime minister has to be in the picture – from beginning to end,” Feldstein said, rejecting Netanyahu’s official claim that he first learned of the document through the media.

Feldstein also emphasized the involvement of Yonatan Urich, a communications adviser and one of Netanyahu’s closest associates, whom he said was aware of every detail of the affair. “Urich knows everything I knew – where the document came from, what its source was, why it wouldn’t be published in Israel – he knows everything,” Feldstein said. He described a close working relationship between himself, Urich, and Srulik Einhorn, saying they operated as a coordinated team and even referred to themselves as “the Hasidim.”

The former adviser did not deny that the decision to approach Bild was intended to bypass Israel’s military censorship. He said this was a “known practice,” not an unusual move or a private initiative on his part. Five days after the murder of six hostages in a tunnel in Rafah, Feldstein said he received a message from Bild: “We’ll publish this tomorrow morning” – and that is what happened.