Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several Israeli media outlets requested Thursday that the military censor approve for publication the details of an incident dubbed “the new security affair,” which reports have said concerns leaked documents and a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office who was hired despite failing to receive security clearance.
A court hearing on petitions against the gag order over the probe into the leaked document scandal is scheduled for Sunday.
While the overall picture of the so-called affair remains unclear due to the censor, the Kan public broadcaster and the Haaretz daily reported on Thursday that it is centered around two key events that took place in recent months.
According to Kan, the first matter concerns a security affairs spokesman who has been employed in the Prime Minister’s Office for the past year despite having failed to receive the necessary security clearance from the Shin Bet.
Nevertheless, the report said that the spokesman had continued to work for the premier in an unofficial capacity and that Netanyahu had been trying in recent months to hire him as an external adviser, which would allow him to be paid for his services.
In his capacity as an acting spokesman, Kan reported that he had regularly participated in consultation with Netanyahu’s chief of staff Tzachi Braverman, as well as the premier’s spokespeople and advisors. It added that he would also visit Netanyahu’s office at the Kirya military headquarters.
The second incident, Haaretz reported, concerned recent leaks to two foreign newspapers of documents ostensibly belonging to Hamas that supported Netanyahu’s talking points on the ongoing war.
In September, the Israel Defense Forces launched an investigation into the leak of documents to the German newspaper Bild and the British outlet The Jewish Chronicle.
The latter eventually removed a series of stories pertaining to the purported Hamas documents and ended its association with the author after serious doubts emerged regarding the veracity of his reporting.
The documents’ alleged contents, which claimed that Hamas is seeking to sow division in the Israeli public and that the terror group is not seeking to reach a deal quickly, were nearly identical to points made by Netanyahu in interviews and press conferences around the time of the publication.
The IDF said that the document cited by Bild was found in Gaza some five months earlier, and was not written by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar himself — who has since been killed by Israeli forces — but that it was a recommendation paper drawn up by a mid-level Hamas officer.
Netanyahu himself requested that the gag order on the affair be revoked following requests from several media outlets on Thursday.
A statement released by his office said that he was demanding “to remove immediately the gag order on the supposed ‘secret affair.'”
“The ongoing obfuscation serves as a cover for deliberate and malicious slander against the Prime Minister’s Office,” he added.
According to Kan, a third item that aroused suspicion in recent weeks was a meeting between Braverman, another PMO official and Netanyahu’s personal attorney Amit Hadad.
Hadad represents Netanyahu in the various corruption charges the prime minister is facing amid his ongoing trial.
On Friday, Opposition chairman Yair Lapid weighed in on the growing scandal over the allegations.
“Netanyahu is already trying, as usual, to distance himself from the affair and to place responsibility on others, but the facts show the opposite: he is personally responsible for every paper, word, or piece of information that comes out of his office,” Lapid wrote on X.
“We have tough enemies abroad, but the danger from within and at the most sensitive decision-making centers shakes the foundations of the confidence of the citizens of Israel in the prosecution of the war, and in handling the most sensitive and explosive security issues,” he added.
National Unity chair Benny Gantz also chimed in, tweeting, “Without going into the details of the case under investigation concerning activity in the Prime Minister’s Office, it is important to emphasize one thing: the prime minister is the one responsible for what is done in his office. For better or for worse.”
Netanyahu’s office hit back, insisting that there have been no leaks from his office, while there were dozens of leaks published in the media about the hostage negotiations, which were harmful to the premier, and none of those were investigated.
“It was not for nothing that Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded the immediate removal of the gag order over the investigation. The ongoing obfuscation is intended to tarnish his office,” the statement read.