- Police say senior aide to PM suspected of obstructing investigation, media names him as Tzachi Braverman; Sa’ar rejects call by opposition leader to suspend his appointment as UK envoy
Police reportedly detained Tzachi Braverman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, for interrogation on Sunday over his alleged attempt to obstruct a probe into the leak of classified intelligence to Bild, a German tabloid.
Police acknowledged detaining an aide to the premier. Hebrew media outlets reported that the suspect was Braverman.
“This morning, a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office has been detained by Lahav 433 officers on suspicion of obstructing investigative procedures,” police said in a statement.
Investigators in the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit searched Braverman’s home during the morning and questioned him in the unit’s Lod headquarters on suspicion of obstructing justice.
Channel 13 reported that officers seized Braverman’s phone and also summoned Omer Mansour, a spokesperson in the PMO, to give testimony in the affair.
The interrogation came after Netanyahu’s indicted former spokesman Eli Feldstein claimed Braverman knew of a covert investigation into the leak months before it was publicized and had assured the ex-aide that he’d be able to quash the probe.
In an interview with the Kan public broadcaster last month, Feldstein said Braverman asked to meet him late at night in an underground parking lot in the Kirya military headquarters, where he informed him that the IDF had launched an investigation into the leak.
Braverman allegedly told Feldstein that the list of suspects went as high as the Prime Minister’s Office and urged him to inform him if he was in any way connected to the leak, as he would be able to “shut it down.” According to Feldstein, Mansour witnessed the meeting.
In the wake of the interview, police opened an investigation into Feldstein’s claim.
A source in Lahav 433 told Channel 12 that Feldstein is expected to give testimony in the unit’s office on Sunday, while Kan reported that investigators may arrange a face-to-face confrontation with Braverman.
Braverman is slated to take over as Israel’s next ambassador to the United Kingdom in the coming months.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid posted to X that, in light of the developments, Braverman’s appointment to London should immediately be put on hold.
“It cannot be that a man suspected of involvement in obstructing a serious security investigation will be the face of Israel in one of the most important countries in Europe,” he wrote.
Braverman during the weekly government meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office
in Jerusalem, June 17, 2018.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel also said that the ambassadorship should be suspended, noting that the position “is a most sensitive role that demands complete public trust.” It also called for Braverman to be suspended from the civil service and further urged that Netanyahu himself be investigated as a suspect in the case.
However, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar rejected the calls, and said Braverman “was lawfully appointed to the position of Israel’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom. His appointment passed all the required stages.”
Sa’ar stressed that “harming an individual—whether in their employment or in their official role—at the preliminary stage of an investigation is inconsistent with the fundamental values of human and civil rights and with the right to due process.”
“I do not believe that the mere existence of an investigation justifies undermining Mr. Braverman’s appointment or suspending him from his position,” argued Sa’ar.
plenum in Jerusalem, January 5, 2026.
Democrats party chairman Yair Golan accused Netanyahu’s inner circle of operating like a crime family.
“If it looks like a crime family, acts like a crime family, and protects each other like a crime family, don’t be confused: this is a crime family that has taken over Israel,” said the left-wing party leader in a post on X.
The Kan interview was Feldstein’s first media appearance since being arrested in October 2024 and later charged for leaking stolen intelligence to Bild the previous month. The German publication presented that classified document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a hostage deal with Israel to end the war triggered on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group led an invasion of southern Israel during which the hostages were abducted.
During the interviews, Feldstein also claimed the premier was aware and supportive of his efforts to make use of classified intelligence in order to sway public opinion against a hostage deal, effectively contradicting Netanyahu’s assertion that he had no prior knowledge of Feldstein’s leak.
According to Hebrew media reports, during his questioning by the Shin Bet after he was arrested, Feldstein also mentioned the conversation with Braverman — saying it was with a senior PMO official but without identifying him by name.
A statement issued on Braverman’s behalf has accused Feldstein of “lying and making things up.”
Netanyahu’s office has similarly denied Feldstein’s claims, saying they were made by an individual clearly motivated by a desire to deflect blame as he faces charges that can carry a life sentence in prison over the transfer of classified intelligence
The Bild affair was triggered by the execution of six Israeli hostages at the hands of their Hamas captors, when Israeli troops approached the tunnel where they were located in the southern Gaza city of Rafah at the end of August 2024.
The execution sparked massive public uproar against the government, which critics saw as the obstacle in hostage negotiations due to Netanyahu’s perceived prioritization of an amorphous “total victory” against Hamas at the expense of the captives’ lives.
Feldstein is also a suspect in the so-called Qatargate affair, in which he and the prime minister’s top media adviser, Jonatan Urich, are suspected of taking money to spread pro-Qatari messaging to reporters, in order to boost the Gulf state’s image as a mediator in hostage talks between Israel and Hamas, all while in the prime minister’s employ.
Since Feldstein was first arrested last year, Netanyahu’s office has flip-flopped in its position on him. After initially distancing itself from him, when it became clear that the aide had in fact been close to Netanyahu, the PMO shifted to calling him a “patriot.”
But, since he implicated the prime minister and Urich, Netanyahu’s office has turned on him again, accusing him of lying and insisting that the premier and his other staffers did not know about any illicit activity.
BY: The Times Union – TOI
