The Israeli police detained one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aides for questioning on Sunday on suspicion of obstructing an investigation into the leak of a classified military document to the news media.
The aide, Tzachi Braverman, was questioned by a police unit tasked with investigating major national crimes and corruption, according to the police and other officials. Mr. Braverman is Mr. Netanyahu’s chief of staff and longtime confidant.
The police confirmed that investigators searched Mr. Braverman’s house and seized his phone.
It was the latest twist in a series of national security scandals roiling the Israeli leader’s closest circles. Critics have accused some of Mr. Netanyahu’s aides of leaking the classified information in September 2024 as part of a disinformation campaign to support his conditions for a Gaza cease-fire and a hostage release deal with Hamas.
The summons came after a former spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, Eliezer Feldstein, who has been charged in connection with the leaked document, said in a television interview last month that Mr. Braverman told him in 2024 that he could “shut down” the investigation.
The prime minister’s office and Mr. Braverman accused Mr. Feldstein of lying.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office has been enveloped in a swirl of legal cases and accusations of misconduct in recent two years. Two of his media advisers were arrested last year over allegations that they were paid to promote Qatari interests in the Israeli news media. And some of the prime minister’s aides have been accused of altering details in the official record about Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was surprised by the Hamas-led attack from Gaza.
Mr. Netanyahu has dismissed the case known as “Qatargate” as fake news and he and his aides have denied wrongdoing.
The scandals have touched a sensitive nerve for Israelis because Mr. Netanyahu has refused to accept personal responsibility for the military, intelligence and policy failures in the lead up to the attack, or to allow an independent state commission of inquiry.
The various cases are separate but overlapping because they involve some of the same people.
Mr. Netanyahu has not been named as a suspect in the episodes involving his aides, though he is standing trial on unrelated charges of corruption.
Mr. Braverman, who was recently appointed to become Israel’s next ambassador to Britain, has already been questioned by the police in connection with the alleged alteration of records relating to Oct. 7, 2023.
Mr. Braverman was suspected of having changed the stated time at which Mr. Netanyahu first gave instructions on how to deal with the Hamas-led assault, to erase an apparent delay from when the prime minister was informed of the start of the attack and when he acted. Mr. Braverman and the prime minister’s office have denied the accusations.
Details of the classified document case first emerged more than a year ago.
In November 2024, the Israeli courts lifted a gag order and identified Mr. Feldstein, who was working as a military affairs spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, as one of the suspects in the case involving the stealing, illegal holding and leaking of a classified military document to Bild, a German newspaper.
Handwritten in Arabic, the document, obtained from Gaza, appeared to lay out Hamas’s plan for psychological warfare against Israel, claiming that Hamas was in no rush to reach a deal to release hostages or to end the war. Some of the messaging aligned with Mr. Netanyahu’s own approach.
Critics said the Bild article based on the leak appeared to be part of a deliberate effort by the prime minister or his loyalists to weaken the domestic campaign for the hostages’ release and influence Israeli public opinion in favor of Mr. Netanyahu’s negotiating positions.
Last month, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, aired a lengthy interview with Mr. Feldstein during which he described a clandestine meeting with Mr. Braverman in September 2024.
According to Mr. Feldstein, Mr. Braverman summoned him to an underground parking lot beneath the military and government headquarters in Tel Aviv. Mr. Feldstein said he arrived after midnight and that Mr. Braverman got into his car and removed their phones. According to Mr. Feldstein, Mr. Braverman told him there was a security investigation underway that extended to the prime minister’s office, asked if Mr. Feldstein was involved and said that he could “shut it down.”
The prime minister’s office did not immediately comment on the questioning of Mr. Braverman on Sunday.
The leader of the parliamentary opposition, Yair Lapid, called for the suspension of Mr. Braverman’s appointment as ambassador to Britain. He said in a statement that it was unacceptable for a person accused of being involved in obstructing an investigation into a security breach to be “the face of Israel in one of Europe’s most important countries.”
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, responded with a statement saying that the police investigation was at a preliminary stage and that suspending Mr. Braverman’s appointment would be “inconsistent with fundamental values of human and civil rights and the right to a fair trial.”
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.
Isabel Kershner, a senior correspondent for The Times in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
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