Hostage release deal compromised by internal leak, court says

The revelations also led to strong criticism from the families of the hostages, who have become increasingly frustrated with the government’s failure to secure the release of their loved ones.

They said it implied an active campaign to discredit them, calling it “a moral low that has no depth. This is a fatal injury to the remnants of trust between the government and its citizens”.

The documents were published in European newspapers, allegedly to circumvent military censorship laws in Israel.

The Jewish Chronicle (JC) was engulfed in a scandal after it emerged it had published stories based on a single anonymous source. The freelance writer behind the pieces was fired, with the articles eventually being taken down.

The articles claimed that Yahya Sinwar was surrounded by a ring of around 20 hostages and that plans had been discovered to smuggle both the captives and the Hamas leader into Egypt. Leading Israeli security journalists questioned the veracity of the reports.

A number of high-profile writers resigned from the paper, accusing it of lacking journalistic standards.

Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman and David Aaronovitch announced they were quitting their columns over what Freedland described as a “great disgrace” at the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper.

At the time, the JC said it conducted a “thorough investigation” into one of its freelance journalists, Elon Perry, “after allegations were made about aspects of his record”.

It said it was “not satisfied” with some of the claims made by the writer, and therefore had deleted his articles and ended its association with him.

Elon Perry told BBC News the JC “made a huge mistake with its statement”. He said he could not reveal his source to JC editors and described a “witch-hunt against me caused by jealousy”.

The Bild articles, meanwhile, were based on a different set of intelligence documents. While they were found to be authentic, leading security journalist Ronan Bergman found their significance had been greatly exaggerated.

It was the publication of this story that triggered the investigation by the IDF and security services, ultimately leading to the arrests.

Netanyahu has sought to distance himself from the allegations, saying the arrested spokesperson had never had access to classified information.

Despite that, this is a growing scandal that has further damaged the already frayed relationship between the government and the hostage families.