A German news show on Saturday claimed to have acquired the full version of a highly classified Hamas document reported on by German right-wing tabloid Bild in September, claiming that the publication had seriously distorted the file to serve the interests of the Netanyahu government.

The “Panorama” current affairs program said that while Bild presented the document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a serious ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel, the full document shows the terror group was prepared to be flexible and sought a truce for 84 days with a pathway to ending the war.

According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “enlisted Bild to serve his goals” of thwarting the ceasefire-hostage release talks.

The report said that the classified document was leaked to communicate three key messages to the global news audience: “Hamas does not intend to end the war, negotiations with terrorists are pointless, and the families of the hostages and protesters calling for an immediate deal are serving the interests of Hamas.”

However, “Panorama” said, the information presented in the original Bild report on the document excluded key wording that explicitly showed Hamas was seeking a deal at the time of its publication.

The Bild report did not report this information and presented the terror group as indifferent to whether the ongoing war ended quickly.

Bild reported that Hamas instead prioritized maintaining its military capabilities, “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses, and increasing international pressure on the Jewish state.

Bild reported that the document was found on a computer in Gaza that belonged to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. It later emerged that the document was written by lower-level officials in the terror group and did not necessarily reflect the leadership’s position.

The document was allegedly unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database by a reservist — a noncommissioned officer (NCO) — who gave it to Eli Feldstein, an aide to Netanyahu, who saw to it that it was transferred to Bild, though he was aware that it had been obtained illicitly and that the military censorship had barred the information from publication.

Feldstein and the NCO, named later as Ari Rosenfeld, a reservist in the Military Intelligence Directorate, have since been indicted for leaking classified information with intent to harm state security.

The affair centers around what prosecutors allege were Feldstein’s efforts to sway public opinion surrounding the hostage negotiations in a more favorable direction for Netanyahu, days after six hostages were murdered by the terror group last August.

In court, Feldstein’s lawyers argued that their client was acting under Netanyahu’s instructions, and that the premier was fully aware that Feldstein intended to leak a highly classified document to the foreign press.

Netanyahu has denied any involvement or knowledge of the document’s leak and is not a suspect in the case.

Since that document was leaked to the German press last fall, Israel and Hamas entered into a ceasefire in January during which over 30 hostages were freed in exchange for thousands of Palestinian security prisoners.

The pause in fighting lasted just under two months, with Israel resuming combat operations in mid-March and halting all aid delivers to the Strip.

The IDF has since ramped up its offensive, which the government says is aimed at degrading Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and pushing the terror group into agreeing to a favorable deal to release the remaining hostages.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 58 hostages, including 57 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. There are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.

Feldstein, along with top Netanyahu aide Jonathan Urich, is also a suspect in the separate “Qatargate” case, with the two currently under house arrest on suspicion of receiving payment from the Qatari government to portray the Gulf state favorably in Israel.

That case has since expanded and the Shin Bet and police are now probing two former Mossad security officials’ business connections with Qatar.