Eli Feldstein, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indicted former spokesperson, alleged on Monday that the premier was aware and supportive of his efforts to make use of classified intelligence in order to sway public opinion against a hostage deal, effectively contradicting Netanyahu’s assertion that he had no prior knowledge of Feldstein’s leak of the document to the German Bild tabloid.
Feldstein made the accusation in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster aired Sunday night — his first media appearance since being arrested in October 2024 and later charged for leaking stolen intelligence to Bild the previous month. The publication presented that classified document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a hostage deal with Israel.
He went on to claim that Netanyahu’s chief of staff Tzachi Braverman got wind of the secret investigation into Feldstein’s leak to Bild months before it was publicized and had assured Feldstein then that he’d be able to quash the probe.
Feldstein also told Kan that well before the Bild affair, Netanyahu was hyper-focused on combating media narratives that were critical of his conduct and had directed his aides to limit public chatter about him being “responsible” for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
The Bild affair was triggered by the execution of six Israeli hostages at the hands of their Hamas captors, who sensed Israeli troops approaching the tunnel where they were located in the southern Gaza city of Rafah at the end of August 2024.
Hellbound and Down 