Tzachi Braverman, chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s Office and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ambassador nominee to the United Kingdom, was detained for questioning by the Lahav 433 National Crime Unit on Sunday, police announced, following reports linking the questioning to the leaked documents (Bild) affair.
The Likud said Braverman’s interrogation is nothing more than a “campaign of persecution” and a “phishing attempt” against Netanyahu and his staff, and contrasted the choice to question Braverman against the prosecution and attorney-general’s decision to treat former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi with “kid gloves” after she threw her phone into the ocean – in the case of the Sde Teiman leak.
“It turns out everything depends on which side of the political map you are on,” it said.
Braverman was released from detention later on Sunday on condition of a 30-day ban on communicating with anyone involved in the affair, as well as a 15-day ban from the PMO, and a 30-day ban from leaving Israel, Ynet reported.
This last ban is ordered despite Braverman being scheduled to fly to London to assume the role of Ambassador to the UK.
In September 2024, a classified military intelligence document outlining Hamas’s stance on hostage negotiations was leaked to the German tabloid Bild, where it was published as evidence that Hamas was less interested in a ceasefire or hostage deal.
The publication appeared to reinforce Netanyahu’s public argument that only further military pressure would secure the hostages’ release.
Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman for the PMO, was arrested and indicted in the Bild leak scandal, charged with passing and holding classified information and obstruction of justice, along with other suspects, including a reservist military intelligence source who provided the document. Feldstein was called in for questioning as well on Sunday.
In a lengthy interview aired on KAN News late last month, Feldstein provided new, more detailed allegations about the internal dynamics of the case. He said Netanyahu was fully aware of and supportive of efforts to use the classified document to shape public opinion, contradicting official denials that the prime minister learned of the leak only through the media.
The Bild affair is one of two probes involving Netanyahu’s aides
Feldstein described pressure from senior aides to suppress early scrutiny, including an incident where Braverman allegedly suggested that he could “shut down” the investigation into the leak – allegations Braverman and the PMO strongly deny.
Haaretz noted that Feldstein made similar claims in his interrogations and reported that his interrogator even made a note to investigate and try to corroborate Feldstein’s claims.
The former PMO spokesman told KAN that Braverman summoned him to a meeting in an underground parking lot at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv and asked him to leave his cell phone behind.
According to Feldstein, during a conversation in a car, Braverman warned him that the IDF’s information security unit had opened an investigation that extended to the PMO and named several individuals who later emerged as suspects.
Feldstein’s account has reignited public controversy and contributed to other criminal inquiries, including a separate police probe into whether Braverman tried to interfere with the investigation.
Overlapping with the Bild leak case is the “Qatargate” scandal, which centers on allegations that senior Netanyahu aides – including Feldstein and Yonatan Urich – were paid by agents connected to Qatar to disseminate pro-Qatari messaging and influence media narratives during the Israel-Hamas War, at a time when Qatar was mediating hostage negotiations despite its links to Hamas.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and police have investigated suspected contact with a foreign agent, bribery, fraud, breach of trust, and money laundering. By now, the police have completed much of the probe and handed the file to the prosecution for review; court decisions have extended certain employment and detention restrictions on Urich.
These two scandals intersect because Feldstein is also a suspect in the Qatargate case, and his recent extensive interview on KAN amplified elements of both. Per reports, authorities were set to orchestrate a police confrontation between the two. The PMO said it had no comment on the report.
Following Braverman’s questioning, the Movement for Quality Government called for the immediate suspension of his appointment as ambassador, arguing that anyone under investigation for suspected involvement in the leak of classified documents and for obstruction of justice cannot hold such a sensitive post that requires full public trust.
Opposition leader and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid later echoed the sentiment, calling for the immediate suspension of Braverman’s appointment, saying it was “untenable” for someone suspected of involvement in obstructing a serious security investigation to represent Israel in one of Europe’s most important countries.
Democrats MK Gilad Kariv said anyone who believes Braverman would take any step without Netanyahu’s involvement is “living in an illusion,” adding that the person who should be questioned under caution over Qatar’s penetration of the Prime Minister’s Office is, first and foremost, Netanyahu himself.