The State Attorney’s Office on Thursday indicted Jonatan Urich, a senior media adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the charge of transmitting classified information with the intent to harm state security over his involvement in leaking documents to the press.

The prosecutors requested that the Tel Aviv District Court bar Urich from the Prime Minister’s Office and from all security facilities and places where classified documents might be kept, and from contacting anyone involved in the case, until the end of legal proceedings against him.

The charges relate to Urich’s role in the leak of a classified document from IDF military intelligence to the Bild newspaper in September 2024, apparently as part of an effort to buttress Netanyahu’s claim that it was Hamas, not the prime minister, that was holding up a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

The leak occurred days after six hostages were murdered by Hamas when Israeli troops unknowingly approached the place where they were being held under the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The document — an internal Hamas memo obtained by IDF intelligence that ostensibly suggested the terror group was not interested in a hostage deal — was allegedly leaked to the German Bild newspaper in order to bypass Israel’s military censor.

The memo was some nine months old when it was leaked, and media reports later indicated that Bild had distorted the file to serve the interests of the Netanyahu........

© The Times of Israel