Israeli hostage families attack Benjamin Netanyahu over Hamas leaks

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a growing political scandal over leaks of classified information that the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza say have undermined support for efforts to free them.

An Israeli court last week partially lifted a gag order on an investigation into the leaks, in which a Netanyahu media adviser was among five people arrested. The leaks referred to now-discredited Hamas plans that appeared to support Netanyahu’s claim that the militant group, not the Israeli leader, was the obstacle to a deal to release the hostages.

On Tuesday, protesters blocked a busy highway in Tel Aviv, Israel’s economic hub, expressing outrage at the prime minister over the revelations. They called for an agreement to end the war in Gaza and release the 101 Israeli hostages still in the enclave.

“This week Netanyahu’s true war aims were revealed: blocking the hostage deal, launching a smear campaign against families struggling to bring their loved ones home, and severely damaging the security of the state,” the Women’s Protest for Return said of the women hostages, one of the groups involved.

Netanyahu’s office said no one from his office had been arrested or questioned and rejected suggestions that the publication of the information – in articles in Britain’s Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s Bild – had harmed the hostage negotiations or Israel’s national security .

However, the Forum for Hostages and Missing Families, which represents relatives of those held by Hamas, expressed “outrage and deep concern at the discovery” that officials allegedly “worked to undermine public support for the hostage deal.”

Opposition politicians also took up the allegations of insulting Netanyahu. Yair Lapid, leader of the main opposition Yesh Atid party, said the leaks “should frighten every Israeli” and called for the investigation to examine whether Netanyahu himself was aware of them.

“[Netanyahu] claims he doesn’t know what his own office is doing while Israel is in an existential war,” Lapid said on Sunday. “If that’s true, he’s unfit. . . to lead the State of Israel in the most difficult war in its history.”

Meanwhile, Benny Gantz, leader of the center-right National Unity party, said the leak of the secret materials “requires a comprehensive investigation and clarification.”

“When sensitive security information is stolen and becomes the tool of a political survival campaign, it is not just a criminal offense but a national crime,” he said.

The scandal became public last week after the confidentiality obligation was partially lifted. Presiding judge Menachem Mizrahi said the revelations could have affected Israel’s ability to free the hostages still held in Gaza.

The leaks cited documents claiming Hamas planned to divide Israeli society through propaganda efforts about the hostages. They also suggested that the militant group wanted to smuggle the hostages into Egypt via tunnels under the so-called Philadelphi corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt.

The stories appeared in late August and early September, when Netanyahu was under intense pressure from mass street protests to accept a deal to end the war and release the hostages. Israeli intelligence believes that around a third of the hostages are already dead.

However, Netanyahu refused to give up control of the Philadelphia Corridor, which many regional diplomats said was a key reason the negotiations collapsed.

The Israeli military informed reporters after the rumors that the documents were written by a low-level Hamas official, were old and had no reference to the army’s intelligence information about Hamas strategy.

Support for Netanyahu’s Likud party, which collapsed after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, has begun to recover in recent months.

Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political analyst, said that despite Netanyahu’s success in weathering numerous political storms, the latest scandal could hurt him politically given widespread desire in Israel for a deal to repatriate the hostages.

However, she added that the election could prove contentious if – as planned – the elections do not take place before 2026. “The question, as always, is when these processes will be put to the test,” she said. “Because even if people have reached a breaking point now, who knows what will happen in two years.”