Israeli police arrested Tzachi Baverman, chief of staff to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday (January 11, 2026), accused of obstructing an investigation into an alleged leak of classified information to the German newspaper Bild. More than four hundred officers were deployed in the operation. This security force reported in a statement the arrest of “a senior official from the Prime Minister’s office” for questioning “on suspicion of obstruction of justice.” Israeli media specified that the arrested man is Baverman, recently appointed Israel’s next ambassador to the United Kingdom. According to these media outlets, his arrest comes after Eli Feldstein, a former advisor to Netanyahu, claimed that Baverman assured him he could halt an investigation—which he had known about for months, although it had not yet been made public—into the leak to the German newspaper. Implicated in the Qatargate case: Feldstein is being investigated, along with another former advisor to the Prime Minister, in the Qatargate scandal, concerning payments from Qatar in exchange for creating a favorable campaign in Israeli media for the country. Police sources informed Israel's Channel 12 that a confrontation between Baverman and Feldstein is expected. Netanyahu is not accused in this case, although he is in others for corruption. In reaction to Baverman's arrest, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called for the immediate suspension of his appointment as ambassador to the United Kingdom. "It is unacceptable that a person suspected of obstructing a security investigation should be the face of Israel in one of the most important countries in Europe," he said on his Twitter account. lgc (efe, il_police)