By Crispian Balmer and Emily Rose
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli state attorney on Thursday indicted an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of passing on classified documents with an intent to harm the state in a case that has rattled the country as it wages war on multiple fronts.
Eli Feldstein was accused of illegally obtaining and releasing sensitive military information, hoping to sway public opinion and alleviate pressure on Netanyahu to make major concessions to secure the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
An Israeli soldier was separately charged with handing Feldstein the documents, which were allegedly retrieved from Gaza and suggested that Hamas militants wanted to sow discord in Israeli society to help it win a favourable hostage deal.
Both men deny the charges, which carry lengthy prison terms.
Netanyahu himself has not been charged but his supporters have accused prosecutors of leading a politically motivated witch hunt against the backdrop of a national emergency.
“They’re trying to keep people’s mouths shut. And we are not accepting it. Enough is enough,” said Shoshana Edasis, one of dozens of pro-government protesters who demonstrated in front of the court on Thursday.
“People have started to rise up and understand that we are losing our democracy.”
A copy of the indictment seen by Reuters said the two suspects had created a mechanism for passing on information that bypassed accepted protocols for sharing such documents.
“The two charged suspects acted in order to extract information that was classified to the most confidential level, while taking the concrete risk of causing serious harm to critical national security interests,” it said.
Rather than leak the information to Israeli media, Feldstein is accused of handing it to German magazine Bild to bypass local censors who would have banned its publication.
The magazine published its article in September, quoting the document, allegedly written by a Hamas official, which called for the group to exert “psychological pressure” on the hostages’ families in an effort to squeeze concessions from Netanyahu.
Netanyahu later pointed to the article, saying it vindicated his hardline position on a hostage deal.
The case has come at a time of growing tension within Israeli society, even as its army remains locked in war both in Gaza on its southern border and Lebanon, to the north.
Government allies have been accused by critics of plotting to oust the attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, while hostage families have faced abuse by people who think they want to sell out Israel.
In an unusually impassioned speech on Thursday, President Isaac Herzog warned that Israel risked tearing itself apart.
“What the hell is happening to us? Is this logical? Haven’t we suffered enough?” he said. “This is absolute madness. This is madness that needs to be stopped.”
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul and Jill Gralow, Editing by William Maclean)
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