Israeli Press
Israeli source says Netanyahu aides leaked secret Egypt deliberations to Qatar
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
A senior Israeli security source claims the material Qatar used to smear Egypt in the Israeli press came out of Israel's own classified security deliberations, the pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom reported on Sunday through its correspondent Benny Ashkenazi.
The claim reverses the working assumption of the Qatargate investigation. Until now investigators held that Qatar fed damaging material about Egypt to the prime minister's advisers — Yonatan Urich, Srulik Einhorn and Eli Feldstein — who passed it to Israeli journalists.
The source's version runs the other way: the material left Israel's system for Qatar, and Doha then marketed it back through the advisers to Israeli reporters. The alleged aim was to weaken Egypt's standing as an honest broker and win Qatar a larger foothold in the negotiations over the captives.
The deliberations in question took place in mid-2024, with the Shin Bet, the army, the National Security Council and the prime minister represented, and examined whether Egypt was violating the peace treaty by moving forces into Sinai. A second security source confirmed to the paper that the meetings happened and said the Egypt file was inflated beyond professional bounds.
Israel Hayom notes that even Israel's ambassador in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, publicly accused Egypt of breaching the treaty on information that proved false. Some of the advisers already face indictment in the affair of Germany's Bild tabloid.
Egypt and Qatar are the two mediators every Gaza ceasefire has run through.
