Why were five arrested in Israel over the Hamas document leak?

 In the latest scandal surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his spokesman is accused of falsifying documents and passing them on to media outlets.

A fresh political storm has engulfed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the arrest of a number of people in connection with an alleged leak of classified documents from his office.

The documents in question are alleged to be Hamas military strategy documents, found by Israeli military intelligence in Gaza and subsequently manipulated by suspects within, or close to, the prime minister’s office and defence establishment. The documents are then said to have been leaked to the German newspaper, Bild, and the UK’s Jewish Chronicle, just as a potential ceasefire deal for Gaza, which ultimately failed, was being hammered out in September this year.

It is unclear how the documents were altered, but they are thought to have created the impression that Hamas intends to smuggle  Israeli prisoners held in Gaza to Egypt and then on to  Iran or Yemen. Prime Minister’s spokesman Eli Feldstein is among five people arrested on suspicion of leaking and manipulating intelligence information. An Israeli court in Rishon Reziyon announced the arrests on Friday, saying a joint investigation by the army, police and Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency found “violations of national security through illegal disclosure of classified information,” which  also “undermined the achievement of Israel’s war objectives."

Judge Menachem Mizrahi said the leak—lifting parts of the previous gag order that had limited reporting—posed a risk to “sensitive information and intelligence sources” and harmed efforts to achieve “the goals of the war in the Gaza Strip.”

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing by members of his office and, according to a statement issued on Saturday, claims he was only made aware of the leaked document via the media.

How big a deal is this?

“This is big,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political adviser to several senior Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “This may be worse than Watergate. Ironically, this is the hotel where Netanyahu stayed on his last visit to Washington,” he added, referring to the property that was the subject of the early 1970s scandal that brought down US President Richard Nixon. “We don’t know where this will end. We don’t know how [Eli Feldstein] got so close to the epicentre of power without going through the proper security checks.”

Barak continued: “However, we do know that this whole affair has endangered our soldiers, the hostages (in Gaza) and whatever intelligence sources our military has there, and that’s a big deal.”

What is the motive behind this leak?

Many observers, including Netanyahu’s critics within Israel, have accused the prime minister of deliberately prolonging the war for his ends.

In September, echoing the sentiment of fellow opposition leader Benny Gantz expressed a month earlier, Yair Lapid termed the carnage in Gaza a “forever war”, destined to continue for as long as Netanyahu and his government remained in power.

The families of the captives trapped in Gaza have routinely accused the prime minister of dragging out the war, blasting an air raid siren outside his house last month and announcing a series of rallies to be staged this Saturday calling for a final ceasefire deal that will see family members returned home.

Even the leader of Israel’s staunchest ally, US President Joe Biden, voiced his frustration over Netanyahu’s avoidance of ceasefire terms, telling Time magazine in June that there was “every reason” to suppose Netanyahu was dragging the war out for his political ends.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud and breach of trust in two cases and bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a third. Lawyers representing the prime minister have repeatedly appealed for court hearings to be delayed out of consideration for Netanyahu’s role as a wartime leader.

However, to remain a wartime leader, Netanyahu must also retain the backing of his coalition cabinet, where hardliners such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be satisfied with nothing less than absolute victory in Gaza – meaning they would not agree to a ceasefire – and potentially the expulsion of its population.