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Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS-IL on 7 September, 2024
Israeli Security Officer Arrested for Alleged Leaks to Cabinet Minister, Reporters
Jerusalem, 15 April, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- A gag order surrounding a sensitive Israeli security investigation was lifted Tuesday, revealing that an officer in the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) was arrested for allegedly leaking classified documents to a Cabinet minister and two Israeli journalists.
The gag order was canceled at the request of both the Shin Bet and the Police Investigations Department, citing widespread leaks that had already begun to circulate.
The suspect, who remains unnamed, was arrested on April 9 and is accused of exploiting his access to internal Shin Bet systems to distribute sensitive material to Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli of Likud, and to journalists Amit Segal and Shirit Avitan Cohen of Channel 12 and the Israel Hayom daily respectively.
The officer said he acted out of a sense of public duty, reportedly telling interrogators, “I acted to publish information of supreme public importance that was hidden by the Shin Bet.” According to the suspect one of the disclosures involved an internal Shin Bet probe into what he described as “Kahanism’s infiltration of the police,” which he claimed was politically motivated.
The suspect said he also shared materials with journalist Shirit Avitan Cohen that detailed the Shin Bet’s conduct on October 7—information he claimed came from the agency’s full investigation and had yet to be released publicly.
“This wasn’t a threat to national security,” his legal team argued, insisting that the suspect sought to correct a public narrative skewed by political interests. “His goal was to bring to the public’s attention issues of interest and public importance of the highest order, which were presented in a highly distorted manner.”
The lawyers added that the leaked information offered a more complex picture of the Shin Bet’s role on October 7 than what had been previously suggested in public summaries, which largely assigned responsibility to the political leadership. “The data contradicts the published paraphrase and shows the Shin Bet’s own conduct in a different light,” the defense argued.
The arrest was partially revealed Monday night by Likud MK Tali Gottlieb, who invoked her parliamentary immunity to publish details of the case on social media while the gag order was still in effect. In her post, she accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of protecting Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar.
“There is no harm to state security here,” Gottlieb tweeted. “It is my duty to publish this. Attorney General Meira is very concerned about her boyfriend Ronen Bar.”
Following Gottlieb’s disclosure, the Shin Bet and the police asked the court to lift the publication ban, citing the “flagrant violation” of the order. “Despite the existence of a publication ban, details from the ongoing investigation were published in violation of the law. In light of the dissemination of partial and incorrect information, it was decided to lift the publication ban to stop the spread of misleading information,” the request said.
Authorities stressed that the journalists were not wiretapped or questioned.
The arrest comes amid falling public confidence in the Shin Bet.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bar have been blaming each other over what was known before Hamas’ October 7 attack and whether it could have been prevented, as well as the “Qatargate” scandal. The government voted to fire Bar in March, but the High Court of Justice on Tuesday issued an interim injunction against his dismissal.
Bar claims that Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss him was influenced by a conflict of interest related to the ongoing investigation. The government argues that Bar should have resigned after the agency completed its internal investigation in March.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, is responsible for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, internal security, VIP protection, and cybersecurity. The only Shin Bet director to ever leave before the end of his five-year term was Carmi Gillon, who resigned in the aftermath of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
