Israeli police have arrested a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly leaking classified information to foreign media.

Opposition leaders say the intelligence was “falsified” and part of a ruse to thwart a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.

The investigation focuses on allegations that the prime minister’s office relayed to foreign media the claim that Hamas planned to smuggle hostages out of Gaza across the Egyptian border and create divisions in Israeli society to pressure Netanyahu to release the hostages and reach a ceasefire agreement.

Eliezer Feldstein, who was named by opposition politicians as Netanyahu’s aide, is among several people questioned over the leak of “classified and sensitive intelligence information,” according to court documents. A court order released Sunday said information extracted from Israeli military systems and “illegally issued” may have undermined Israel’s ability to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

CNN is attempting to reach Feldstein for comment.

A Netanyahu spokesperson denied there were any leaks from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and that “the person in question was never involved in security-related discussions,” apparently referring to Feldstein .

The Prime Minister’s Office also downplayed the possibility that the leak would impact negotiations with Hamas over the release of the Gaza hostages, calling the claim “ridiculous.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid on Sunday accused the prime minister’s office of leaking “false secret documents to torpedo the possibility of a hostage deal – to shape a public opinion influence operation against the families of the hostages.

Families of hostages held in Gaza have accused Netanyahu of repeatedly thwarting a deal with Hamas, saying an end to the war in Gaza would force the prime minister to hold elections. Netanyahu is said to have in the past torpedoed agreements by demanding at the last minute – something he denies.

The alleged leaks were the basis of two articles published in September, one in the UK’s Jewish Chronicle and the other in the German newspaper Bild, both citing Israeli intelligence sources and supporting a narrative defended by Netanyahu at the time.

The articles were published as negotiations on the ceasefire and the release of hostages were underway, but also as thousands of Israelis demonstrated almost daily calling on the government to reach a deal with Hamas and repatriate the Israeli hostages home.

These protests intensified after the Israeli military announced on September 1 that six Israelis had been killed in Gaza – four of them were to be released as part of a first wave of a potential deal.

The next day, Netanyahu held a press conference and presented an alleged Hamas document that he said was found in a tunnel in Gaza. The document, he said, shows that Hamas is trying to divide Israelis. “I am not going to give in to this pressure,” Netanyahu said, reiterating his demand that Israel control the Gaza-Egypt border, also known as the Philadelphia Corridor. This would “prevent the clandestine passage of our hostages to Sinai,” he said. “They may appear in Iran or Yemen. »

A few days later, the Jewish Chronicle published an article claiming that intelligence sources claimed that “Sinwar’s plan was to smuggle himself, other Hamas leaders and Israeli hostages through the Philadelphia corridor to ‘to Sinai and from there to Iran. »

The article said the information was gleaned “during the interrogation of a captured senior Hamas official, as well as information obtained from documents seized on Thursday, August 29, the day the six bodies of the murdered hostages were been recovered.” It has since been deleted, but an archived version is always available.

The prime minister’s son, Yair Netanyahu, promoted the article on his social networks.

At a press conference on September 10, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a reporter: “I don’t know the kind of information you mentioned regarding Sinwar and the hostages in Philadelphia. »

During the same period, an article in the German newspaper Bild stated that a Hamas document it was referring to was written by Yahya Sinwar and would show how the group was prolonging the war and attempting to create divisions within Israel and to put pressure on the families of the hostages. ‘ families so that they can in turn put pressure on the government. Bild cited an intelligence document and echoed Netanyahu’s claims during his September 2 press conference.

In a September 8 statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the document cited by Bild was not written by Sinwar and was an old document found five months ago and “drafted as a recommendation by Hamas mid-ranking officers and not by Sinwar.” by Sinwar.

This information does not “constitute new information,” the Israeli military said, adding that it was “presented to decision-makers on several occasions, even before the document in question was found.” The statement added that an investigation is underway into the leak of the document, which “constitutes a serious offense.”

Following the court’s breaking of the silence on Sunday, families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza pointed the finger at the prime minister’s office, saying “suspicions indicate that people associated with the prime minister acted to commit one of the greatest deceptions in history. of the country. »

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz – who left Netanyahu’s war cabinet earlier this year – viewed the alleged leaks as a failure at the top of government, with Gantz calling them a “national crime”.

Both blamed Netanyahu’s office for the leak, with Gantz accusing Netanyahu of exploiting the leaks for political purposes. Lapid also questioned whether the leak might have been intentional as hostage negotiations with Hamas broke down earlier in the year, according to a joint statement from the two opposition leaders on Sunday.

“It is suspected that Netanyahu’s team released secret documents and falsified secret documents to torpedo the possibility of a hostage deal,” Lapid said in a statement. “This matter came out of the Prime Minister’s own office, and the investigation must determine whether it was not ordered by the Prime Minister.”

Dana Karni and Mike Schwartz contributed to this report.