A top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been arrested for allegedly extracting classified information from the Israel Defence Force and leaking it to the foreign press.

Eliezer Feldstein is one of four suspects arrested on Friday in connection with an ongoing investigation into the alleged leak of secret information from inside Netanyahu’s office.

Since early September, there have been allegations that there was a leak from the PM’s office relating to the hostage deal and Hamas’s proposed plan to allegedly smuggle hostages out of Gaza over the Egyptian border.

Several suspects were arrested on Friday in relation to the leak of classified documents from Netanyahu’s office, the Rishon Lezion Magistrate Court announced in a statement, as it partially lifted a gag order on the investigation.

One of the suspects, Feldstein, was hired early in the war as a spokesperson in Netanyahu’s office and is accused of carrying out espionage inside the IDF to conduct a disinformation campaign on the Israeli public.

Some have claimed that the leaks were timed to undermine ceasefire talks and a hostage deal.

Judge Menachem Mizrahi confirmed last week that the Shin Bet, police and the IDF had begun the “open phase” of their investigation into a suspected “breach of national security caused by the unlawful provision of classified information.”

Mizrahi said that authorities suspect the leak harmed the achievement of Israel’s war aims, as he partially lifted a gag order on Sunday regarding the incident dubbed the “security affair.”

The leak posed a risk to “sensitive information and intelligence sources,” and harmed efforts to achieve “the goals of the war in the Gaza Strip,” Mizrahi said.

According to Channel 12 news, the war aim was a hostage deal, with its report claiming that suspects leaked Hamas documents obtained by the IDF about the terror group’s strategy in the hostage negotiations.

“Several suspects were arrested for questioning, and the investigation is ongoing,” Mizrahi said but did not divulge any further information about the names of the suspects.

Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that no one who worked for the PM had been questioned or arrested. However, the PM has aides who work for him but are not specifically employed by his office. Their statement did not deny that the leak may have come from inside the PM’s office.

Articles relating to the supposed “Hamas plan” were based on the documents found in Gaza and allegedly leaked from inside the IDF and the PM’s office, which appeared in Germany’s Bild Zeitung. A similar story was published in the JC.

The articles suggested that Hamas wanted to smuggle the hostages to Egypt via tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor.

Critics have blamed the PM’s insistence on holding onto the Philadelphi corridor for the failure of hostage negotiations.

The JC apologised for the article, written by freelancer Elon Perry, removed all stories by him and severed ties with the journalist, who had exaggerated aspects of his CV.