Israeli security leaks involving Netanyahu’s office ‘could rival crimes of a mafia’: Report

JERUSALEM

Security leaks involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office could rival crimes committed by a mafia, Israeli daily Haaretz said on Monday.

Netanyahu’s office is suspected of trying to alter the minutes of security cabinet meetings on Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip. His staffers also face suspicions of blackmailing a senior officer in the military secretariat to secure access to the minutes.

The prime minister’s office is also suspected of having defense personnel extracting sensitive information from the army’s computer systems in violation of the law and giving it to Eli Feldstein, who served as a spokesman in Netanyahu’s office.

“The little that has been published to date about the three cases involving the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office raises suspicions that the crimes committed are the kind that could rival those of a mafia,” Haaretz said in an editorial.

“What lay behind them wasn't a hunger for money, but for power.”

The Israeli newspaper said that the three cases of information leaks were an attempt “to craft a narrative that would serve the prime minister.”

Haaretz said the security leaks were meant to erase Netanyahu’s responsibility for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack from history books, provide him with material to blame the defense establishment for the attack and suppress public protests against him.

It cited that the German newspaper published an inaccurate report that anti-Netanyahu protests had bolstered the position of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a result of the manipulated information.

The Israeli newspaper called for pursuing investigations into the security leaks to uncover the truth.

“We shouldn't succumb to the delusion that this will be enough to defeat the pro-Netanyahu deep state, which is working tirelessly to blame October 7 on the army, the Shin Bet security service and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” it said.

“And it is doing all this so that the man who for years steered Israel straight into the catastrophe of October 7 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – can evade the judgments of the criminal justice system, the public and history.”

The security leaks came as Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack last year, killing more than 43,600 people, mostly women and children, and rendering the enclave almost uninhabitable.

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the blockaded enclave.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio