Security source claims: "PM's advisors leaked classified information to the Qataris to 'smear' Egypt"
According to the source, information about Egypt did not only come from Qatar to the PM's advisors and through them to Israeli journalists, but the axis was also reversed. Qatar allegedly received leaks from classified meetings and used them. The security establishment feared that the smears against Cairo would endanger the peace treaty. Srulik Einhorn and Yonatan Urich: "The claims are false."
A security source who spoke with "Ha-Yom" claims that the Prime Minister's advisors — Yonatan Urich, Srulik Einhorn, and Eli Feldstein — allegedly passed classified information from security discussions concerning Egypt to Qatar.
That same source claims that the information that reached the Qataris, which they used to "incriminate" Egypt in the Israeli media, came from those same classified discussions. This was done so that the Qataris could market the incriminating information through the PM's advisors in the Israeli media, with the goal of Qatar gaining a larger foothold in the hostage deal negotiations. An indictment has been filed against some of the PM's advisors in the "Bild" affair.
At the time, the security establishment was worried about the smears against Egypt, arguing that it could endanger the peace treaty with Israel and even diminish its willingness to assist regarding Hamas and Gaza in the matter of releasing the hostages. Only in retrospect did the security establishment realize that everything was actually part of a Qatari influence campaign.
It should be noted that at the height of the affair, even Israel's Ambassador to the USA, Yechiel Leiter, claimed that Egypt was violating the peace treaty. This turned out to be incorrect information, and the question asked was whether someone had intentionally fed him false information.
"Egypt is building up in Sinai"
Until now, the working assumption of the investigators in the Qatargate affair was one-way: Qatar operated the Prime Minister's advisors Yonatan Urich, Srulik Einhorn, and Eli Feldstein, and they received "incriminating" materials about Egypt from it, and mediated them to Israeli journalists. However, a senior security source has "broken silence" and is now presenting us with a picture that allegedly turns the tables.
The dramatic claim now being revealed is that the material used by the Qataris to smear Egypt did not come from open sources on the web or from information that was already acceptable to the PM, as one of the suspects in the case testified, but was allegedly pulled directly from the most classified discussions of the security "holy of holies" of the State of Israel. The axis, according to the claim, was completely reversed: the "incriminating" information about Egypt did not come from Qatar to the Prime Minister's advisors and then to journalists, but allegedly went out from the Israeli system to Qatar, and from there was marketed back to the Israeli journalists. It should be emphasized that it is claimed that the three advisors leaked information that came from the discussions, but did not necessarily participate in them themselves.
According to that same source, in the middle of 2024 — around the months of March, April, and May, and also afterwards — several security discussions were held in which representatives of the Shin Bet, IDF, National Security Council, and the PM participated. The discussions dealt with the question of whether Egypt is committing violations of the peace treaty with Israel, mainly regarding the entry of forces into Sinai, a decision that requires the approval of the PM, the Minister of Defense, and the Chief of Staff. These were discussions held to examine Egypt-Israel relations and conduct a situation assessment, amid fears of an escalation that could also spill over to the Egyptian side towards Israel. In another discussion held during that period, questions were raised again regarding Egypt's commitment to Israel.
"Artificially inflated"
To cross-reference the information, we turned to another security source who participated in those discussions, and he confirmed to us that discussions on the subject of Egypt were indeed held around those dates. According to the additional source, the subject of alleged violations by Egypt came up in the discussions, and the Qataris wanted to leverage this and place it at the center of the media "prime" in Israel. That same source even said that he thought in real-time that the subject of Egypt was being artificially inflated, so that it exceeded the boundaries of a professional security discussion. That same source said that he saw in real-time how the publications against Egypt and in favor of Qatar coincided with the time when the classified discussions were held.
The central suspicion in the Qatargate affair is that the PM's advisors Urich, Einhorn, and Feldstein acted to pass messages to press correspondents in the name of a "political source," while the source of the messages was Qatar. The goal of the messages was to present articles in the media sympathetic to Qatar, while diminishing Egypt's part as a fair mediator in the deal, and effectively dictating the media agenda.
And indeed, when cross-referencing the dates on which the classified discussions on the subject of Egypt were held, it is discovered that there were publications on the subject in the Israeli media. Thus, for example, at the end of 2024, false reports began to be published on social networks and in the media in Israel that the Egyptian army was deploying with increased forces in Sinai, thereby violating the peace treaty with Israel.
Additional publications dealt with glorifying Qatar's part in the hostage deal and that it is the one capable of leading to the release of the hostages instead of Egypt, as well as publications that claimed that Egypt allowed the 7.10 disaster to happen, and allowed the smuggling from Gaza to Egypt, through which, allegedly, Egyptian army officers involved in the smuggling became rich.
Responses
Advocate Lior Epstein, representative of Srulik Einhorn, stated in response: "First, Srulik Einhorn was never the Prime Minister's advisor, did not work in the Prime Minister's office, and was not employed by it. Beyond that, the claim regarding him is false, absurd, and completely denied. Attributing such acts to Mr. Einhorn is serious, baseless, and misleading."
Yonatan Urich stated in response: "This is a complete lie, which is not published by political rivals in the middle of an election campaign for no reason. I never attended a classified discussion and never passed any information, not even classified, to anyone in the world."
No response was received from the PM's office or from Eli Feldstein's lawyer to the news.
