Israel PM attacks Qatar probe as 'witch hunt' after aides arrested
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced an investigation into possible links between his aides and Qatar as a "witch hunt", after he gave testimony to police.An adviser and a former spokesman were arrested on Monday over alleged payments from the Gulf Arab state as part of the probe, which has been dubbed "Qatar-gate". They have denied any wrongdoing.Netanyahu, who has not been named as a suspect, accused the police of holding the two men as "hostages", adding: "There is no case."A Qatari official also dismissed the probe as a "smear campaign" against Qatar, which has played a key role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas during the war in Gaza.
It comes as Netanyahu faces escalating protests in Israel over his policies, including the resumption of Israel's offensive against Hamas before securing the release of all the remaining hostages, the dismissal of the director of the Shin Bet internal security agency, and the advancement of a controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary.
On Monday, Israel's police force announced that two suspects had been detained as part of an investigation into ties between the prime minister's office and Qatar. It provided no further details, citing a court-imposed gag order on the case.Israeli media reports subsequently identified them as Yonatan Urich, a very close adviser to Netanyahu, and Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman in the prime minister's office, and said they were suspected of contact with a foreign agent, money laundering, bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.Netanyahu later cut short an appearance at his separate trial on corruption charges, which he denies, to provide recorded testimony to police investigating the case at his office in Jerusalem.After being questioned, Netanyahu posted a video online in which he condemned both the arrests and the wider investigation."I understood that it was a political investigation but I didn't realise how political it was," he said. "They are holding Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein as hostages, making their lives miserable over nothing.""There is no case, there is absolutely nothing, just a political witch hunt, nothing else."The prime minister's Likud party also issued a statement accusing the attorney general's office and the Shin Bet chief of "fabricating" the case and attempting to "terrorise Yonatan Urich in order to extract from him false testimony against the prime minister through blackmail".On Tuesday, a judge at Rishon LeZion Magistrates' Court extended Urich and Feldstein's detention by three days, saying there were "reasonable suspicions" that required a thorough investigation. The police had requested a nine-day extension.Judge Menahem Mizrahi said in a decision that investigators suspected that the two men had acted to "promote Qatar in a positive light" and "spread negative messages about Egypt" and its role as another mediator in the Gaza ceasefire talks.For this purpose, the judge said, a "business and economic connection" was created between a US lobbying firm working for Qatar "through the mediation of [Urich] in return for monetary payments which were passed to [Feldstein]" through an Israeli businessman.Last week, Israeli media published a recording in which the businessman was heard saying that he had transferred funds to Feldstein on behalf of a US lobbyist working for Qatar.At the time, Feldstein's lawyers said the payments were "for strategic and communications services Feldstein provided to the prime minister's office, not for Qatar". They also said Feldstein was not aware of any connection between the businessman and other parties, including Qatar. Ulrich's lawyers said he denied involvement.A police representative told Judge Mizrahi on Tuesday that Urich was also suspected of passing journalists messages from a source linked to Qatar, which were presented as if they came from senior Israeli political or security officials.Ulrich's legal team, which includes Netanyahu's defence lawyer Amit Hadad, said they would submit a request to lift the gag order on the case to expose "the injustice done to him". The judge went on to approve the request, saying the gag order had been repeatedly violated.
A Qatari official told the Financial Times: "This is not the first time we have been the subject of a smear campaign by those who do not want to see an end to this conflict [the Gaza war] or the remaining hostages returned to their families."Qatar has long championed the Palestinian cause and host political leaders of Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK, the US and other countries.Between 2018 and the start of the current war, which was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the Gulf state provided hundreds of millions of dollars of aid for Gaza.Israeli governments allowed the money to be transferred to pay the wages of civil servants in Gaza's Hamas-run government, support the poorest families, and fund fuel deliveries for the territory's sole power plant. However, critics asserted that it was helping Hamas to stay in power and fund its military activities.Since the war, Qatar has helped, along with the US and Egypt, to broker two ceasefire and hostage release deals between Israel and Hamas.The most recent lasted between 19 January and 18 March, when Israel renewed its air and ground campaign, blaming Hamas for rejecting a new US proposal for an extension and the release of its 59 remaining hostages. Hamas accused Israel of violating the original deal.Netanyahu claimed that the "sole purpose" of the Qatar-gate investigation was to prevent the dismissal of the director of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, which has been participating in the probe, and to "topple a right-wing prime minister".The government fired Ronen Bar on 21 March, saying it had lost trust in him over the failure to prevent Hamas's deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.However, the supreme court suspended the dismissal pending a hearing on 8 April in response to petitions from opposition political parties and a non-governmental organisation, which said the move was made for inappropriate reasons and constituted a severe conflict of interest.Bar will remain in post until the supreme court rules on the petitions, although the court permitted the prime minister to interview potential replacements in the meantime.On Tuesday, Netanyahu's office announced that he had reversed a decision made the previous day to appoint former navy commander Vice Adm Eli Sharvit as the next Shin Bet chief."The prime minister thanked Vice Adm Sharvit for his willingness to be called to duty but informed him that, after further consideration, he intends to examine other candidates," a statement said.That decision came after Likud officials criticised Sharvit's participation in the 2023 mass protests against the judicial overhaul.US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also described Sharvit's appointment as "problematic" in response to a recent article criticising President Donald Trump's policies on climate change.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘We know Iran is a threat': Australia backs Israel's ‘right to self-defence' but won't play a military role in conflict
Australia has backed Israel's right to self-defence after strikes on Iranian nuclear operations and military leaders that have sparked a barrage of retaliatory fire. Iran and Israel have targeted each other with missile and airstrikes after the latter launched its biggest-ever air offensive against its long-time foe. The Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the situation in the Middle East was a 'very perilous, risky' situation. 'Israel has a right to self-defence,' she told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday. 'We know Iran is a threat. We know that its nuclear program poses a threat to international peace and obviously to Israel.' Wong confirmed she had spoken with her Iranian counterpart and urged his country to 'return to diplomacy and dialogue'. 'Continuing to escalate this has consequences for all peoples of the region,' she said. 'That is a position that so many countries in the world are putting to, not only the Iranians, but also to the Israelis.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Australia on Wednesday announced sanctions would be imposed on two Israeli government ministers over their stance on illegal West Bank settlements, a move done in conjunction with other nations including Canada and the United Kingdom. But it has widened the nation's rift with the US over Israel after the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, condemned the measure. Wong said the decision to break away from the US and sanction senior Netanyahu government ministers wasn't taken lightly. Asked if Australia had weakened its influence with both Israel and the US on a two-state solution as a result of the split, the foreign affairs minister said extremist settler violence wasn't consistent with the aspiration of Palestinian statehood. 'We're so far from that right now [two-states] but that is why the international community is trying to work together to build this pathway,' she said. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, urged Australians in the region to leave amid the escalating conflict. 'It's obviously a very volatile situation,' he told reporters in Seattle on Saturday local time. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Albanese said officials were monitoring the situation but there had been no request for defence involvement. 'Australia does not play a role in this military conflict,' he said. 'I wouldn't expect that there would be a request for Australia to play a military role, but we will continue to play a role in terms of looking after Australian citizens.' The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing assistance to Australians on the ground. The US was notified about the Israeli strikes in advance but Washington officials have been quick to point out it played no part in the attacks, warning Iran not to target its personnel or interests. Albanese landed in the US on his way to the G7 summit in Canada on Sunday. He is expected to meet with a range of global leaders, including the US president Donald Trump, who had been working with Iran on a nuclear deal. Tariff discussions are expected to take the spotlight but defence talks could also feature after the US urged Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP. Australia is already forecast to grow military spending to 2.3% of GDP and Albanese insisted his government would give 'whatever capability Australia needs to defend our national interest'.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Trump's Iran remarks let him still play 'good cop' to Netanyahu's 'bad cop'
Why you can trust Sky News Reading between the lines of President Trump's social media posts is an art, not a science. But whether by intention or not, there is always insight in his posts. His Truth Social words reacting to the Israeli attack on Iran are intentionally ambiguous. When was he told by Israel that they would strike Iran? Did he give them a green light, or was it more amber? Israel-Iran live: Missile from Iran and Yemen 'hitting Israel' Was his insistence, as recently as 48 hours ago, that a strike would "blow" the chances of a deal with Iran actually just a ruse to afford Israel the element of surprise? That's what the Israelis are claiming. Clearly, President Trump does not want to give the impression that his 'don't strike' advice was ignored by Netanyahu. His social posts are filled with enough ambiguity to allow him to maintain his good cop stance alongside Netanyahu, the bad cop: "I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to 'just do it'..." Trump's 'art of the deal', whether it be in real estate or nuclear weapon negotiations, requires unpredictability and ambiguity. Both of those, as it happens, are useful to hide ineptitude too. The line between diplomatic masterstroke and disastrous diplomacy is thin. The president is claiming that the Israeli attacks make a deal more, not less, likely because of the pressure Iran will now be under. Maybe, but many regional watchers are very unconvinced. An alternative path to negotiations for Iran would be to go fully down the North Korea route, comforted in the knowledge that China - as a big Iranian oil customer - and Russia - as a weapons customer - will be on side. Trump may think that the pressure of bombardment will force Iran to heel. But the other pressure the Iranian supreme leader is under is the pressure of survival. Self-preservation necessitates the Iranian response that we're now seeing before any prospect of renewed negotiations can come. 2:33 The Israelis and the Americans are calculating that Iran and its proxies are now sufficiently degraded, and so the response will be limp and containable. They might be right in terms of conventional attacks, but asymmetrical operations are another fear - against Israeli targets or more broadly, softer Western targets in the region or beyond. Step back from the chaos of the past 24 hours. The broader picture here is regime change. Netanyahu said as much in his Friday speech, calling for an internal uprising. He ignored history - which suggests people tend to rally round their flag - but more than that, that foreign air strikes alone don't work. Look at Libya in 1986, Iraq in 1991, or Yugoslavia in 1999. Netanyahu wants to go further. Will he take out the supreme leader? Trump does not want another full-scale conflict in the Middle East. Of all the things he is accused of being, a hawkish warmonger he is not. But there are plenty of politicians on Capitol Hill - on both sides of the divide - who support regime change in Iran. I was at an event in Congress in December organised by Iranian exiled opposition leaders. I was struck by the cross-party support for regime change in one form or another. Israel this weekend announced that its military had achieved total air superiority from western Iran to the capital Tehran. That's remarkable. Could Trump be persuaded to pursue regime change? Peace, eventually, through strength? His motto adapted.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Searching for answers about US-backed aid agency in Gaza
The road to Dover, Delaware, is lined with barns and giant wheat fields and all the other signs of American on this journey, the scene only highlights the devastating contrast between peace and driving here because in this rural heartland lie clues to what's behind a highly contested development thousands of miles away on the ground in new US- and Israeli-backed entity created to feed the territory, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), was registered here in Delaware two weeks after US President Donald Trump took is known about the group, which has been at the centre of global headlines amid scenes of chaos and deadly incidents nearly every day as desperate Palestinians have tried to reach its sites. Eyewitnesses recently reported Israeli forces firing on crowds heading to an aid site. Israel says it is investigating while also accusing Hamas of trying to sabotage the GHF said on Thursday that eight of its local Palestinian workers were killed when Hamas attacked one of their in the latest deadly incident, at least 15 Palestinians were killed on Saturday by Israeli fire, local hospitals said. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots at a group they believed posed a potential threat, and an aircraft struck one person who moved towards killed by Israeli fire near Gaza aid site, say hospitalsVideo shows Palestinians climbing fence and rushing to aid site On our journey in Delaware to find out more about the GHF, the search yields many clues but few definitive established itself saying it intended to feed civilians in Gaza, where the United Nations has said more than two million people are at risk of foundation, which uses armed American security contractors, bypasses the UN as the main supplier of aid in see the GHF as enabling a plan by the Israeli government to displace Palestinians south into smaller areas of Israel - which has long sought to remove the UN as the major humanitarian provider to Palestinians - argues the alternative system was needed to stop Hamas stealing denies that, while the posture of the previous US administration of President Joe Biden was that if supplies were being diverted, it was not at any scale that possibly could justify blockading aid to March, Israel cut off all food and other aid supplies to Gaza as it resumed its war against Hamas following a two-month ceasefire. Israel said the step, which has been widely condemned, was taken to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining UN and aid groups demanded access, while international condemnation of Israel grew. In the midst of this standoff emerged the GHF, promoted by Israel and championed by the Trump virtually nothing was known about its provenance and, crucially, who was funding early May, a 14-page leaked document circulated among aid groups and set out the concept behind GHF - to provide aid to Palestinians from several collection super-hubs in Gaza, secured by armed private contractors and ultimately, beyond their perimeter, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).The initiative appeared to be designed to bypass the UN as the major the executives or advisers listed in the document were Nate Mook, a former boss of the charity World Central Kitchen; David Beasley, a former World Food Program chief (listed as "to be finalized"); and Jake Wood, a US Marine Corps veteran and disaster-response also listed a retired US lieutenant-general on its advisory by phoning around those who knew some of the background, it became clear that neither Mr Mook nor Mr Beasley was in fact part of the document appeared to be a wish list to try to build support and possibly private donations for the fund. Questions unanswered There were no clues as to the authorship of the leaked text, however. So who was really running the GHF?Jake Wood did indeed become the executive director, but within a fortnight he resigned saying the project breached the humanitarian principles of "humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence", which he said he would not our search to find out more, we pull up in Dover's quaint downtown. A woman in costume is giving a guided history tour. This is a place you come to hear about wars past not drive to the address listed in a public records search for the GHF. It's a red brick building with wooden doors and no doorbell. Inside, in a corridor, two women emerge from an office. They try to assist but say they can't help because they don't know anything specifically about address is in fact an agent for incorporating firms - registering them legally - in Delaware, a state known for a less intrusive approach to company transparency.I ask the women why an organisation would have its registered address here, but not be based here."So they're not bothered," says one with a back on the road, and I send some messages to the spokesman of the GHF, a newly appointed role that is being undertaken by a US-based public relations professional.I've been asking for days for an on-the-record interview with him, or the new executive director. I've asked for confirmation about who is funding GHF and who else is on the board, but nothing is an apparent lack of transparency for a humanitarian group is a "critical" issue, says Bill Deere, Washington DC office director for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency agency has been the core focus of the Israeli government's attempts to sever the relationship between the UN and Gaza's population, and it was this year banned from operating in Deere says: "For folks who like or dislike the UN and its agencies, you can always track our money."We're very transparent about where our funding comes from. By contrast… no-one really knows very much about this [GHF]." Across the front lines He describes the new aid project as "a Hunger Games distribution network", a reference to a dystopian fiction Deere is calling for the UN to be allowed fully back into Gaza to get food aid to Palestinians again professionally, and at scale."I do not know, I cannot fathom, as a UN employee or even as an American, how the world can accept this situation," he UN agencies and aid groups have escalated their criticism of the GHF believe the GHF is breaching the fundamental humanitarian principle of other words, they argue that if aid providers working in a conflict are seen as taking a side, those workers and the aid recipients risk becoming say the GHF has militarised the aid supply, endangering civilians who also have to cross front lines to get to the distribution sites, while disadvantaging the weak and its part, Israel alleges that UNWRA is not neutral. Last year, after accusations made by Israel, the UN fired nine staff out of UNRWA's 17,000-strong workforce, saying they may have been involved in the October 7 attacks. It didn't specify what they were accused of, while UNRWA says the initial claims have still not been proven. In the Gaza war, according to the agency, at least 310 UNRWA workers have been killed, the vast majority of them by the Israeli army.I press Bill Deere, of UNRWA, on Israel and GHF's criticism, that Hamas was diverting aid under the UN system. He says Israel has never offered proof."This is just a made-up excuse in order to create a system that looks like it's helping people without actually helping people," he we continue our search to find out more about GHF, I make my way to the official Delaware state building that holds company team has requested GHF's certificate of incorporation and other linked documents. A woman who works in the records office hands us three pages stapled reveal only the address of the agents we've just visited, and that the GHF changed its name from the "Global Humanitarian Fund" to the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" on 28 signed "Loik Henderson, President".According to the leaked May document, Mr Henderson is a lawyer "with decades of experience [including] Fortune 500 companies". We try to reach him by phone, but get no next day, a statement arrives from a GHF email address, which isn't attributed to any named press officer and contains no numbers to reach its media says the foundation has given out 19 lorry loads of food that day. The UN system was getting in 600 per day during the ceasefire. For a population of more than two million people, the current daily amount is clearly nowhere near enough; borne out by images of an apocalyptic scene as desperate crowds have descended from barren, sandy dunes over fences into one aid site this email contains a section entitled "inaccurate news reporting", having earlier in the week heavily criticised media organisations for "fabricated and exaggerated narratives". The foundation has distanced itself from the series of deadly incidents, saying no-one was shot at its executive director John Acree is quoted in the email as saying the foundation has so far given out 8.5m meals "without incident". The BBC can't verify the accuracy of GHF's measure for the number of meals in each of its food Saturday, the GHF controversy deepened as one of the world's top consulting firms, Boston Consulting Group, said it had sacked two partners for their role in helping to set up the chief executive apologised to staff saying the group was "shocked and outraged" that the two senior employees had carried out unauthorised work on the de Waal, an expert in famine and aid supply in war at Tufts University in Massachusetts, likens the concept currently being rolled out in Gaza to colonial-era counter-insurgency attempts."The thinking of the military as they mount operations like this is that they will be able to deny all resources to an insurgent group, forcing its members to surrender through hunger and forcing a civilian population to turn against it," he strongly rejects any suggestion it uses hunger as a weapon of war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said Israel "must avoid famine [in Gaza], both for practical reasons and diplomatic ones".Israel has also rejected mounting international criticism of the GHF project. Desperate for food And it has denied allegations in the Israeli media, and raised by opposition leader Yair Lapid, that the Israeli government has secretly funded office says Israel and the US are working in co-ordination "to cut off aid from reaching Hamas", as he escalates Israel's offensive in Gaza, arguing that "military pressure" will help force Hamas to release the hostages it adds that "Israel does not fund the humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip".The US government has also said it is not funding the on the road, we try to reach the GHF executive director John month, contacted via LinkedIn, he told me he would not be doing interviews, but did later put me in touch with the foundation's new spokesman, who has so far declined any on-the-record Wednesday last week, a woman at Mr Acree's home told me he was currently in Tel foundation also emailed a press release saying that it had appointed an executive chairman, Reverend Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical preacher and public relations Moore is a strong supporter of Israel and was among President Trump's evangelical "advisory board" of faith leaders who laid hands on the president and prayed for him in the Oval a Fox News website article, Mr Moore launched a scathing attack on the UN system."Activists disguised as humanitarians clutch their pearls and rush out press releases in support of these failed systems," said Mr Moore."They keep spreading with no scrutiny the profane lies of Hamas."We return to Washington DC after our searches in phones buzzes with a message from a colleague saying thousands of hungry Palestinians have looted an aid truck in central Gaza, as desperation over food shortages the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation released videos of Palestinians thanking President Trump behind the wire fences of its distribution has become a main ingredient of Gaza's aid - but we find few real answers about who's really behind reporting by Alex Lederman
