Israel’s State Attorney’s Office filed an indictment against Eli Feldstein, a spokesman in the Prime Minister’s Office and chief suspect in a leaked documents case, in the Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday.
The state prosecutor is charging Feldstein with leaking secret information that damaged state security, an offense carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
A noncommissioned officer, who was not publicly named and who is part of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate and reportedly passed Feldstein the documents, was also indicted.
He is charged with five counts of providing confidential information, obstruction of justice and theft.
The State Attorney’s Office wants the two detained until the court issues a ruling in the case. The court will consider the request.
It is possible that additional indictments will be filed, Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported. So far, five people have been arrested.
Some 200 protesters demonstrated in support of Feldstein outside the court. Some shouted, “Eli is a hero.” His supporters claim this is a case of “selective enforcement,” intended to undermine the Prime Minister’s Office, a view shared by the prime minister, Ynet reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “It is very puzzling why out of all these leaks, this particular document—the contents of which were known to everyone and helped the State of Israel—received such an aggressive and trendsetting investigation.”
Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli and Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi, both of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, participated in the protest.
Chikli said that the indictment represents the “politicization of the judicial system.”
Karhi portrayed the leak as a patriotic act, asking the court that if the noncommissioned officer in question had passed information the night before the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, when no intelligence official had done so and saved Israel, “would you not have given him a commendation?”
The officer’s sister, Avigail, told Ynet, “It pains me to see this. My brother’s motives are pure. He was over 200 days in the reserves. He has served in the army for 10 years, after three years of regular service. He does not want applause or glory—but only the good of Israel is important to him.”

The Prime Minister’s Office has sharply criticized the investigation, noting that dozens of leaks have poured out of hostage negotiations and cabinet meetings, and yet only the one implicating the PMO is being investigated.
Critics who have taken the Prime Minister’s side have questioned why the documents were held back from the PMO to begin with.
They have also attacked Feldstein’s treatment by the authorities, as well as the treatment of the four others who were arrested as part of the investigation.
Feldstein was held for three weeks without being charged. On Monday, a makeshift noose was found in his prison cell. He was immediately transferred to “a suicide-prevention observation cell,” the Israel Prison Service said.
Feldstein, a spokesman for military affairs in the PMO, is accused of leaking a classified document to the German newspaper Bild to reduce public criticism directed at Netanyahu after the IDF discovered the bodies of six hostages murdered by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in late August.
That document became the basis of a Sept. 6 Bild story saying Hamas wasn’t interested in a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, but wanted to drag out talks to gain time to rebuild its military capabilities, “exhaust” Israel’s military and “exert psychological pressure” on the hostages’ families and consequently the Israeli government.
Bild said the document, dated spring 2024, was found on a computer said to belong to now-slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, “who personally approved the content.” Israeli military sources later disputed that, saying the document was on a computer belonging to a mid-level Hamas commander.
Netanyahu referred to the Bild story in a Sept. 8 Cabinet meeting, saying it revealed that Hamas planned “to tear us apart from within” but “the great majority of Israel’s citizens are not falling into this Hamas trap.”
Opponents of the prime minister, including some relatives of hostages, accused Netanyahu of purposely leaking the document to thwart a hostages-for-ceasefire deal to pursue his war aims and his political survival.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, and who has become one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics, said on Sunday that Netanyahu “stuck a knife in the hostages’ backs.”
“Instead of ending the war and saving those who have been abandoned by him for over a year, Netanyahu is sacrificing them for criminal personal considerations,” Zangauker said.
Netanyahu’s office has denied that the premier initiated the alleged leak, saying he learned of it from the media. His office also defended Feldstein, though without naming him, saying the suspect had never been exposed to classified material.
The prime minister was informed by Feldstein prior to the leak, according to the Kan News public broadcaster on Tuesday. Feldstein told Netanyahu that he had a new document related to negotiations with Hamas. The prime minister expressed interest in the document, per Kan.
Jonathan Urich, an outside adviser to Netanyahu, contacted Feldstein, verifying that he had transferred the document to Srulik Einhorn, a contact for Bild, Kan reported.
Netanyahu’s office also argued that the document’s release didn’t compromise the effort to free the hostages but helped it by exposing Hamas’s methods of applying psychological pressure by blaming Israel for the failure of talks, “when everyone knows—as has been confirmed repeatedly by U.S. officials—that Hamas is preventing the deal.”
On Monday, in a speech before the Knesset, Netanyahu reiterated that it wasn’t Israel but Hamas blocking a deal, and the Americans, who “know every detail” of the talks, said the same thing.
(JNS)