Jerusalem, 11 January, 2026 (TPS-IL) — Tzachi Braverman, chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s ambassador-designate to the United Kingdom, was detained Sunday morning for questioning by the police. He is suspected of attempting to obstruct an investigation into the leak of classified Israeli military intelligence to the German tabloid Bild.
“This morning, a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office has been detained by Lahav 433 officers on suspicion of obstructing investigative procedures,” police said in a statement. The announcement did not specify who was being questioned; Israeli media reports identified Braverman. The police department’s Lahav 433 unit — sometimes described as “Israel’s FBI” — handles the country’s highest-level organized crime, corruption, and sensitive national investigations, and is questioning him.
The investigation is linked to a 2024 leak in which a classified Israeli military document detailing Hamas’s position on hostage negotiations was published abroad. The leak bolstered Netanyahu’s position that military pressure, rather than diplomatic negotiations, would secure the release of hostages held in Gaza.
The case resurfaced after Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman for Netanyahu, publicly stated that Braverman had warned him of a military investigation months before it became public. Feldstein claimed Braverman read him the names of officials under scrutiny and indicated that he could “silence” the inquiry.
“Braverman told me the investigation reached the Prime Minister’s Office and said he could make it disappear,” Feldstein said in a televised interview on Kan 11. Feldstein, who is under indictment for passing classified information and obstruction of justice, is also scheduled to provide testimony as part of the ongoing probe.
Other figures implicated in the case include a reserve officer from the Israeli Defense Forces’ Information Security Division who supplied the document. Prosecutors have said that publishing such sensitive intelligence abroad could jeopardize Israel’s military operations and national security.
The probe into Braverman overlaps with the Qatargate scandal because both involve former Netanyahu aides, including Eli Feldstein, and examine how sensitive information may have been used to influence media coverage during the 2024 Israel–Hamas conflict, raising questions about possible foreign-linked interference.
Braverman was scheduled to assume his post as ambassador to London in the coming months, but the assignment is now uncertain. The Prime Minister’s Office has declined to comment beyond police statements. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called it “untenable for someone suspected of interfering in a serious security investigation to represent Israel in one of Europe’s most important countries.”
The Movement for Quality Government stated that anyone under investigation for obstruction of justice “cannot hold a sensitive post that requires public trust.”
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