Police again seek to bar Urich from Netanyahu’s office

Israel Police sought to prolong restrictions on PMO aide Yonatan Urich, a key Qatargate suspect, saying more steps are needed to complete the probe.

Israel Police requested on Wednesday to extend the restricted measures imposed on Yonatan Urich, an advisor to the prime minister and one of the chief suspects in the “Qatargate” investigations, for 60 days.

At the hearing at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, police representative Aviv Porat explained that some of the investigative measures have been used and exhausted, but not all, and what the police wants to do would require the approval of the most senior figures in the Justice Ministry.

This same scenario took place just a few weeks ago, when Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court judge Menahem Mizrahi denied the request to extend the measures, the police appealed to the Lod District, and there, Judge Amit Michles overturned the request and reinstated the measures.

At that hearing, the police’s investigative unit said it expects the investigation will wrap up within the next few weeks.

Urich, along with the former military spokesman in the Prime Minister’s OfficeEli Feldstein, was arrested in March on suspicion of working on a public relations campaign for Qatar while working in the PMO and close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Allegedly, this concerned a public image campaign surrounding the 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar.

The ‘Leaked Documents Affair’

The severity of the connection is related to the Israel-Hamas War, whereQatar served as a mediator and has close connections to Hamas. Specifically, suspicions began to arise around November of last year against Feldstein, who worked closely with Urich, regarding the “Leaked Documents Affair,” in which Feldstein allegedly leaked classified military documents to the German tabloid Bild, after permission for their publication was denied by the Israeli military censor.

The documents were eventually published, allegedly to sway public opinion on the hostage negotiations. This was around August 2024, when six hostages were killed by their Hamas captors in a tunnel: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Almog Sarusi, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, and Alex Lobanov.