Israel’s police have detained two people as part of their investigation into alleged illegal ties between aides of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Gulf state of Qatar.
According to Israeli media reports from Monday, the two suspects are both high-ranking advisers to the Israeli prime minister.
Qatar is one of the mediators in the indirect talks with Hamas, but is also considered a supporter of the Palestinian Islamist organization.
Further details were not initially disclosed. A court-ordered gag order applies, the police said. Netanyahu will also testify in the case, the media reports said.
The investigations in the case are being carried out jointly with the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet. Israel’s government decided to dismiss Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar at the beginning of the month.
Critics in Israel warn that the move should lead to the end of the investigations in the Qatar affair.
The Supreme Court suspended Bar’s dismissal with a temporary injunction.
Netanyahu’s Likud party criticized the arrest of one of the two men as an attempt to bring down the Israeli prime minister and prevent Bar’s release. The party called the affair a “fabricated scandal.”
The attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency are working “to carry out a coup with the help of arrest warrants,” a party statement said, without providing details.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that one sentence was missing from the Likud party’s statement – namely, that no one from Netanyahu’s office had received money from the hostile country of Qatar.
Netanyahu is trying to sabotage the investigation into the affair, opposition politician Yair Golan charged. He called for an investigation into the suspicion that Netanyahu sold security for money.