A tense hearing took place at the Lod District Court on Tuesday before Judge Amit Michles over whether to lighten the restrictive release conditions of Yonatan Urich, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and one of the chief suspects in the “Qatargate” investigations.
Michles ruled that Urich’s restrictive conditions will continue until September 10, while his requirement to stay inside Israel’s borders will be in effect until September 12. This means he won’t be able to make contact with anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office – including the prime minister himself – or at Perception, the company owned by fellow Qatargate suspect Israel Einhorn, which sits at the center of the investigations.
Urich’s defense made two main arguments. The first is that he wasn’t operating as a public servant, but rather as a private citizen, and therefore there is no justification in blocking him from returning to his employment and making contact with anyone connected to the Prime Minister’s Office. The second is that there is no justification in not matching his release conditions to that of Eli Feldstein – or anyone else interrogated in connection with the case – the former military spokesman for the PMO and the first individual to be questioned on the matter.
Both were arrested in March on suspicion of alleged connections to Qatar and having organized a public relations campaign for the Gulf state while it serves as a negotiator in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks and has close connections to the terrorist organization that launched the cross-border massacre attack on October 7, killed 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251, of whom it is still holding 50 captive.
Urich’s charges included contact with a foreign agent, disclosure of classified information, bribery, fraud, breach of trust, and obtaining by fraud. His detention was extended twice, once in April, when he was released to house arrest, and then again one month later, in May, under restrictive conditions.
Last week, Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court Judge Menahem Mizrahi freed Urich from all restrictions but gave police the opportunity to appeal the decision, which it did, leading to the Tuesday hearing; Michles accepted the appeal.
This is not the first time Michles overturned a ruling, in this case issued by Mizrahi, lending to two very different interpretations of the legal and evidentiary bases for the police’s requests.
Urich’s team can accept the decision or appeal to the Supreme Court.
Urich's actions reportedly undermined interests of PMO, Israeli public
Israel Police, in contrast, tried to establish that Urich indeed did function as a public servant and that his actions undermined the interests of the PMO and the Israeli public at large.
Police representative Supt. Aviv Porat said before the court that materials coalesced in the interrogation indicate a “significant suspicion that after October 7 – and as criticism bloomed against Qatar for its connections with and involvement in Hamas – the Gulf state queried Israeli figures to initiate a public-relations campaign to better its image in the eyes of the Israeli public.”
Porat added that this alleged plan, approved by Qatari elements, allegedly included several courses of action, all aimed at shifting the impression Israelis had of the Gulf state post-October 7. “Urich and other figures played a central role in the execution,” he said.
Urich’s specific talent was formulating and pushing the messages out to the public, he added.
PORAT EMPHASIZED that at the core of the issue is the nature of the messaging. “If it was a different state working with Qatar on public relations for an electrical company, there would be a greater doubt as to whether state security was compromised,” he said.
He specified, “The suspicion is that a man employed by the Likud and working in the PMO during the war was, per the suspicions, bribed by a foreign state to which he provided similar services, all without coming clean about it, not in the legal realm nor in the moral one.”
Porat pointed out that several of the individuals who provided testimony in the case attested to Urich being a public servant.
Michles noted in his decision that the question of whether Urich operated as a public servant or not is only one factor of many in the proceedings.
Last week, Mizrahi cited statements Netanyahu made in his own testimony on the matter, indicating that there was nothing wrong with Urich allegedly cooperating with Qatar, being that it is “not an enemy state.” Michles wrote on Tuesday that “it is questionable and unusual that if the prime minister and the defendant are so close, as the evidence suggests, why didn’t he [Netanyahu] know of the simultaneous work Urich was doing for Qatar?”
Porat added that there is more work required from investigators. When Michles said that by that logic, the investigation will never reach a concluding point, Porat responded that the conditions under which Urich will be allowed to return to his place of work “may enable an obstruction of the investigation.” The police representative added that by current estimates, the investigation against Urich is due to wrap up within the next 45 days.
“This is a man who is under investigation and may legitimately be allowed to return to the very same place from which he carried out the alleged crimes,” said Porat.
Noa Milstein, Urich’s lawyer, noted that anyone else who was interrogated or provided testimony was allowed to return to their place of work.
She added that the list of forbidden contacts was never actually approved by the court and that the list reflects “the intentions of the interrogators.”
Milstein called forbidding Urich to return to either of his places of employment “draconic,” especially considering there is no projected end date to the investigation, and others who were investigated are free to work. “I found one case in the last three years where this protocol was upheld, and it was an exceptional case,” she said.
Porat noted that, by all accounts, Urich’s paychecks from the Likud are still active, and that there is nothing stopping him from financing himself in other ways with other clients.
The crux of the investigation, as it has been revealed to the public so far, is 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. This was allegedly done at the direction of Urich and Israel Einhorn, another aide who was interrogated in connection with the case last month from where he resides in Serbia.
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.