The defendants in the Bild case will respond to the charges against them on December 15, more than two years after the original indictment was filed, the Tel Aviv District Court ruled Tuesday.
The hearing was the first since the indictment was amended last month to add senior Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adviser Yonatan Urich as a defendant alongside former Prime Minister’s Office spokesman Eli Feldstein and IDF reservist Ari Rosenfeld.
It was also the first time Urich and Feldstein had met since they were confronted by police during the April 2025 investigation. Rosenfeld was also present in court.
Nearly two years after Feldstein and Rosenfeld were indicted in November 2024, the defendants have yet to formally respond to the charges, and their accounts have not yet been heard in court.
Defense lawyers argued Tuesday that they could not respond to the amended indictment while significant investigative material from the overlapping Qatargate affair had still not been transferred to them.
The prosecution told the court that the Qatargate investigation had not yet been completed, despite previous indications that it had concluded, but said it was “nearing completion.”
The prosecution nevertheless asked for the defendants to respond to the indictment Tuesday. Defense lawyers said that was impossible before they received and examined the outstanding evidence.
Rosenfeld’s attorney, Uri Korb, asked the court to dismiss the indictment, citing alleged investigative failures and the failure to provide the defense with the full case materials.
Feldstein’s attorney, Oded Saboray, argued that Feldstein and Rosenfeld had also been denied the right to a hearing before the amended indictment was filed.
Saboray said the defense contacted the prosecution in June and asked to present its arguments, but the request was rejected within a day.
“They should invite us to a hearing, hear our arguments and decide,” he told the court. “Why are we being discriminated against? Why was Yonatan Urich invited to a hearing and we were not? We were deprived of a right that the legislature found to be fundamental.”
Urich underwent a pre-indictment hearing before he was added to the case. Feldstein and Rosenfeld had already been indicted, but their lawyers argue that the changes to the prosecution’s case entitled them to present arguments before the amended indictment was filed.
The court ultimately scheduled the defendants’ response for December 15.
Classified military documents transferred to German paper
The case centers on allegations that highly classified Military Intelligence material was removed from IDF systems and passed to Feldstein before the German newspaper Bild published its contents.
According to the indictment, Rosenfeld began transferring classified material to Feldstein in June 2024, believing that information produced by the military was not reaching Netanyahu.
The material included a document concerning Hamas’s approach to negotiations over the release of the hostages.
After the military censor barred its publication in Israel, prosecutors allege that Feldstein worked with Urich and others to have its contents published abroad.
Bild published the report on September 6, 2024, days after the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages murdered by Hamas in a tunnel in Rafah: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi.
Their deaths prompted mass protests and renewed public pressure on the government to reach a hostage deal.
The Bild report purported to describe a Hamas strategy of prolonging negotiations and exerting psychological pressure on the families of the hostages and the Israeli public.
Prosecutors allege that Feldstein and Urich sought to use the document to influence the public debate following the hostages’ deaths, including by directing responsibility for the stalled negotiations toward Hamas and away from criticism of the government.
According to the amended indictment, Urich knew that the material came from a classified military source and had been barred from publication in Israel.
He allegedly connected Feldstein with political strategist Israel Einhorn, who had contacts at Bild, and later worked with Feldstein to amplify the report in the Israeli media.
After the article was published, Urich allegedly wrote to Feldstein that “the boss is happy.” Prosecutors say the two also drafted a statement for Netanyahu referring to the report’s contents.
Urich is charged with providing secret information with intent to harm state security, providing and possessing secret information, and destroying evidence.
Feldstein is charged with providing secret information with intent to harm state security, possessing secret information and obstruction of justice. Rosenfeld faces five counts of providing secret information, as well as charges of obstruction of justice and theft by an authorized person.
All three deny wrongdoing.
Feldstein claims Netanyahu knew of 'Bild' leak
The case returned to the center of public attention in December 2025, when Feldstein gave a three-part interview to journalist Omri Assenheim and described what he said had taken place inside the Prime Minister’s Office.
Feldstein claimed that Netanyahu knew about the classified document and the effort to have it published in Bild, and that Urich knew where the information had come from and why it could not be published in Israel.
Netanyahu and his office denied Feldstein’s claims. Urich has also denied wrongdoing.
The interview renewed scrutiny of senior figures in Netanyahu’s office and prompted further investigative steps. Among Feldstein’s allegations was that Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, summoned him to a late-night meeting at the Kirya military headquarters and told him that an emerging security investigation into the leak could be stopped.
Police later questioned Braverman under caution, confronted him with Feldstein, and sought unaired material from the interview. Braverman denied attempting to interfere with the investigation.