NETANYAHU ORDERED SHREDDING OF DOCUMENTS BEFORE LEAVING

Documents stored in safes in the Prime Minister’s Office were shredded on Sunday in violation of the law, shortly before Prime Minister Naftali Bennett took office, Michael Hauser Tov reported for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

People who worked at the office under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was he who ordered the documents shredded. It was not immediately clear which documents were destroyed or how many.

The Prime Minister’s Office said it is “unfamiliar with this issue,” but promised to look into it. A Netanyahu spokesperson deemed it “a total lie. No such thing ever happened.”

The safes containing the documents are located in the so-called “aquarium” – a sterile area where the prime minister and his most senior aides sit.

They usually contain the schedules of senior officials, documents related to their work, and other material.

Some of the documents in the safes were transferred to the office’s archives, as mandated by law. Once there, they will be filed so that Bennett, his ministers, and his senior aides can access them as needed.

According to both a cabinet decision and civil service regulations, shredding documents is illegal. All documents, whether public or private, are supposed to be preserved in the office’s archives, especially documents related to professional matters.

Senior legal sources said that what happened in Netanyahu’s office is extremely unusual. Even personal documents – for instance, officials’ schedules – are supposed to stay in the archives, with limited access for the new prime minister and his staff, they added.

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