A former adviser to the Israeli prime minister stated that, immediately after the Hamas attack in October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu instructed him to find a way to avoid responsibility for the security breach.
Eli Feldstein, who is on trial for allegedly releasing classified information to the press, made the explosive accusation in an extensive interview with the Israeli public channel Kan on Monday night.
Critics have repeatedly accused Netanyahu of refusing to take blame for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history. However, little is known about the prime minister’s behavior in the days immediately following the attack, during which time he has consistently resisted the opening of an independent state inquiry.
Speaking to Kan, Feldstein said that “the first task” he received from Netanyahu after ‘October 7’ was to stop calls for accountability.
“He asked me, ‘What are they talking about in the news? Are they still talking about responsibility?’ He wanted me to think of something that could be said to counter the media storm surrounding the question of whether the prime minister had taken responsibility or not,” reported Feldstein.
The then-adviser added that Netanyahu seemed “panicked” when he made the request. Feldstein further claimed that he was later instructed by people in the prime minister’s inner circle to omit the word “responsibility” from all public statements.
On October 7, 2023, militants led by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and took 251 hostages, taken to Gaza. Israel then launched a devastating war in the Palestinian enclave that has already caused almost 71,000 deaths, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish civilians from combatants, but indicates that around half of the victims were women and children.
Netanyahu’s office classified the interview as “a long series of false and recycled allegations made by a man with clear personal interests, who tries to deflect responsibility from himself”, according to the Hebrew press.
Feldstein’s statements come after he was accused in a trial in which he is suspected of having disclosed classified military information to a German tabloid, with the aim of improving the public perception of the prime minister after the death of six hostages in Gaza, in August last year.
Feldstein is also a suspect in the scandal known as ‘Qatargate’, being one of two close advisers to Netanyahu accused of having received money from Qatar while simultaneously working for the prime minister.
On Monday, regarding ‘Qatargate’, and after new revelations, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called for the resignation of Netanyahu, already the target of a corruption trial, accusing him of treason in the midst of a state of war.
“Netanyahu’s office betrayed the State of Israel and the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces in time of war and acted on behalf of Qatar for personal gain, while he himself tried to cover it up,” Bennett, prime minister between 2021 and 2022, declared on social media.
In this case, Netanyahu’s advisers are suspected of having received payments from Doha to promote Qatar’s interests in Israel.
As part of the judicial investigation, two of Netanyahu’s advisers, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, were briefly detained at the end of March. A third person implicated, Yisrael Einhorn, currently lives in Serbia.
The television channel i24 reported on Sunday night alleged conversations between Feldstein and Einhorn, which, according to the station, prove that they were working for Qatar.
Furthermore, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein are suspected, according to other Israeli media outlets, of having passed confidential information to Qatari sources during the war in the Gaza Strip.