Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday morning responded sharply to the announcement by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara that she intends to prosecute his former advisor Yonatan Urich in the matter of the “leaks case” at the Prime Minister’s Office.

Netanyahu said, “The Attorney General’s disgraceful announcement of the intention to prosecute Yonatan Urich, specifically at this time, is an unfortunate decision that raises serious questions.”

“I am familiar with the details, and I state unequivocally: there was no harm to state security. Yonatan did not harm state security.”

“This is an absurd, baseless move—intended to serve a different agenda and not the public’s interest,” Netanyahu concluded.

The Attorney General announced on Sunday evening that she had decided to file an indictment against Urich, subject to a hearing.

According to the announcement, Urich will be charged with security offenses of providing secret information with the intention of harming state security, possession of secret information, and destruction of evidence.

Adv. Zehava Gur, an expert in constitutional and administrative law, spoke about the Attorney General’s announcement in an interview with Galey Yisrael on Monday morning: “I’m not surprised,” she said. “This is a witch hunt that didn’t start yesterday. We have been witnessing the persecution of right-wing public figures from time immemorial; only this time it is more intense. This is a crazy blitz against the right, a kind of settling of accounts by the Attorney General moments before she is fired. This also comes in a planned attempt to prevent her dismissal, as now we will start this round of petitions to the Supreme Court again in order to ensure that this continues indefinitely.”

Likud Minister Shlomo Karhi responded to the announcement by stating, “The Attorney General is in a fit of rage, firing in all directions. But nothing lasts forever. She will still be held accountable for all her misdeeds. Start packing, go home, and then a commission of inquiry into your thuggish and selective behavior.”

The “leaks case” has been slammed even by the left as being politically motivated and blown out of proportion. Additionally, according to a Ynet report published in January 2025,  the real issue in the “leaked documents’ case, leading to the arrests of Eli Feldstein, Ari Rosenfeld, and Yonatan Urich, was vital intelligence information about a “foreign actor” involved in the October 7 massacre that senior IDF officials chose to hide from the political echelon.

Following the Ynet report, Likud MK Tally Gotliv stated that the “foreign actor” was the head of Egyptian intelligence.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)