Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and chief prosecutor Amit Aisman have decided to indict Netanyahu adviser Yonatan Urich over his alleged role in the classified-documents leak to the German newspaper Bild, after rejecting his arguments at a pre-indictment hearing, the Central District Attorney’s Office notified his attorneys Thursday.
The indictment, which prosecutors said would be filed shortly in the Tel Aviv District Court, will charge Urich with delivering secret information with intent to harm state security, delivering secret information, possession of secret information, and destruction of evidence.
The decision moves one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest advisers into the center of one of the most sensitive criminal cases to emerge from the war, a case that has raised questions about the handling of classified intelligence inside Netanyahu’s wartime communications circle and the alleged use of security material in the public battle over the hostage negotiations.
In a letter to Urich’s attorneys, Amit Hadad and Noa Milstein, the prosecution said the decision followed a hearing held on November 2, written arguments submitted on November 6, and a supplementary hearing held after Aisman took office as state attorney.
The case centers on the alleged leak of a classified IDF intelligence document that was later published by Bild in September 2024, days after six hostages were found murdered in a Hamas tunnel in Gaza and as mass protests erupted in Israel demanding that the government reach a deal for the remaining captives.
'Yonatan Urich acted lawfully; his only sin was working for Netanyahu'
The publication came as Netanyahu was under intense pressure over his insistence on maintaining Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor and his argument that continued military pressure - rather than concessions to Hamas - was needed to force Hamas to compromise. The document was widely seen as bolstering Netanyahu’s position by presenting Hamas, rather than the Israeli government, as the main obstacle to a deal.
Urich, a longtime Netanyahu adviser, has been suspected of involvement in the alleged political and media chain through which the classified material moved from the security establishment toward publication abroad. Prosecutors have treated the affair not only as an unauthorized leak, but as an alleged attempt to use sensitive military intelligence to shape Israeli public opinion at a critical moment in the war.
Urich denies wrongdoing.
Responding on X/Twitter, Urich sarcastically wrote that it was “nice of the outgoing attorney-general not to seek the death penalty.”
His lawyers issued a sharper formal response, calling the decision to file an indictment “wrong and detached from the evidence,” which they said “undermines the prosecution’s theory and dismantles the allegations against Urich from the ground up.”
Hadad and Milstein said Lod District Court President Menachem Mizrahi, who they said is familiar with all the investigative material in the case, had determined that there was “not a shred of evidence” that Urich was involved in the leak.
“Instead of closing a baseless case, as it should have done, the prosecution is clinging by force to a hollow and unnecessary case,” they said.
“Yonatan Urich acted lawfully; his only sin was working for Netanyahu,” they added.
The defense response signaled that Urich’s attorneys will seek to attack not only the evidence against him, but the prosecution’s broader theory of the case: that Urich knowingly played a role in turning classified material into a political and media tool.
Likud ministers and MKs also rallied around Urich on Thursday, attacking Baharav-Miara and portraying the indictment as part of a broader campaign against Netanyahu’s circle. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused the attorney-general of using the law-enforcement system against the national camp and those close to the prime minister, while others on the Right framed the decision as political persecution rather than a security case.
Political fallout widens beyond Urich
The political fallout also widened beyond Urich. Following reports that prosecutors had made a decision in principle to indict Israel Einhorn in the same security affair, Democrats MK Naama Lazimi called for the immediate removal of his mother, Prof. Talia Einhorn, from the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee.
The committee is responsible for vetting some of Israel’s most senior public appointments, including the heads of major security bodies. Lazimi argued that Einhorn’s continued membership on a panel that is meant to approve senior defense and intelligence appointments now created a serious conflict of interest.
Lazimi said she had already demanded in December 2025 that Baharav-Miara and former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis - who heads the committee - end Einhorn’s term there, and that the reported decision regarding her son made the matter more urgent.
“It cannot be that someone whose son is accused of security sabotage, delivering secret information, and connections for money from within the most sensitive office in the country will decide who leads our intelligence and security bodies,” Lazimi said.
She added that Einhorn had already been forced to recuse herself in the past over what Lazimi described as a serious conflict of interest, and demanded that her tenure be ended “immediately and with the utmost urgency.”
The Bild affair has already led to indictments against former Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein and IDF reservist Ari Rosenfeld over the alleged leak of classified military material. Prosecutors have described the leak as a serious national-security breach, while defense attorneys in the case have argued that the state has overstated the evidence and criminalized conduct tied to wartime media strategy.
The affair has also widened to other figures around Netanyahu. Earlier this week, prosecutors summoned Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, to a pre-indictment hearing over alleged obstruction of justice, fraud, and breach of trust in a separate strand of the case.
Unlike Urich, who prosecutors tie to the alleged leak and dissemination of the classified document, Braverman is suspected of conduct after the investigation had already begun, including allegedly warning Feldstein about the covert probe. Braverman denies wrongdoing, and no indictment has been filed against him.
The expected indictment against Urich is likely to deepen the legal and political fallout from the affair, which has become one of the main criminal cases surrounding Netanyahu’s wartime office and the use of classified information in the public battle over the hostage negotiations.