Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s beleaguered former spokesman Eli Feldstein told the Shin Bet he resisted revealing the name of a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office during an investigation into leaks of classified intelligence to the German Bild tabloid out of fear for his and his family’s safety, Channel 12 reported Wednesday.

The report was published to coincide with the airing of the third and final segment of an extended interview Feldstein gave to the Kan public broadcaster — his first media appearance since being arrested in October 2024 and later charged for leaking stolen intelligence to Bild the previous month. The German publication had presented that classified document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a hostage deal with Israel.

Feldstein has admitted to being part of the leak and has alleged that Netanyahu’s close aide, Jonatan Urich, who is also a suspect, and Netanyahu himself, who is not a suspect, were part of the scheme as well, which was allegedly aimed at swaying public opinion.

In addition to the Bild affair, Feldstein is also a suspect in the so-called Qatargate affair, in which he and Urich are accused of simultaneously working for Qatar and for the Prime Minister’s Office.

In the Kan interview segment that aired Wednesday, Feldstein claimed that he had withheld names from investigators to protect PMO staff and had assumed they would come forward themselves, an account that somewhat contradicts the Channel 12 report that he had done so out of fear rather than loyalty.

In the first segment of the interview aired Monday night, Feldstein alleged that Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, had gotten wind of a secret IDF investigation into Feldstein’s leak to Bild months before it was publicized and had reassured him that the probe would be quashed.

Although Feldstein freely named Braverman in his interview with Kan, Channel 12 reported that he had initially refused to give up his identity during a Shin Bet probe into the leak, and had told the agency that he had to “think about the future,” given that “there are only two people who know the content of this conversation.”

“If the Pandora’s Box is opened, if I open my mouth,” Feldstein allegedly said of the conversation with Braverman, “I will have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

“Neither the Shin Bet nor any other body will be able to protect my family or me from being harmed,” he said, according to Channel........

© The Times of Israel