Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu filed a defamation lawsuit today (Tuesday) with the Jerusalem District Court, seeking NIS 2.6 million (~$850,000) in damages from ten media outlets and journalists—including Haaretz, Ynet, and Channel 12 News, as well as Shlomi Eldar, Ruti Yuval, Uri Misgav, Nadav Eyal, Barak Ravid, and Attila Somfalvi.
At the heart of the lawsuit are reports claiming that, before the October 7 attack, Netanyahu received warnings regarding Hamas’s intentions from UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, but failed to pass them on to senior defense officials. Netanyahu denies having spoken or met with either of them during the relevant period. The complaint asserts that there is no record of the alleged conversations in the Prime Minister’s Office’s official logs.
The lawsuit focuses initially on an article published by Shlomi Eldar and Ruti Yuval in Haaretz on September 8, which dealt with the alleged warning from the UAE President. In addition to that article, the suit cites further publications on the newspaper’s website and on social media. Netanyahu argues that these constitute separate publications for which compensation should be awarded for each instance.
The complaint also addresses reports by Channel 12 News and Barak Ravid regarding the alleged conversation with the UAE President and Nadav Eyal’s column and reports on Ynet—including a report regarding an alleged warning from the Egyptian intelligence chief—as well as posts by Uri Misgav and Attila Somfalvi on social media. The lawsuit alleges that Misgav accused Netanyahu of “treason from within” following the Haaretz report.
Netanyahu claims that the defendants continued to disseminate the reports even after they had been denied, and acted with the intent to harm him in the midst of an election campaign. He is asking the court to order them to pay compensation of at least NIS 2.6 million, plus legal costs and attorney’s fees.
Correspondence between the parties was attached to the statement of claim. In response to Netanyahu’s formal demand letter, Haaretz’s lawyers rejected his demand to retract the report and clarified that the newspaper stands by its investigative piece. The allegations raised in the lawsuit have not yet been adjudicated by the court.