Mandelblit Admits Under Oath He Did Not Approve All Police Actions Against Netanyahu

On October 11, 2026, former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit took the stand at the Jerusalem District Court as a defense witness in Benjamin Netanyahu's trial. Netanyahu sat in the courtroom and told reporters on arrival: "The truth is coming out." Asked about the police's investigative actions in the cases, Mandelblit confirmed that he did not approve all of them. He testified that there were serious investigative actions he did not approve.

His explanation was that no specific approval was required for each step and that he wanted to hear about the main ones. When Netanyahu's attorney Amit Hadad asked whether he had said the police were acting behind his back, Mandelblit answered: "It's possible." That is a short sentence, but it comes from the man who signed the indictments against a sitting prime minister.

The defense, led by Hadad and Noa Milstein, argues that police acted against Netanyahu without the Attorney General's approval, as Basic Law: The Government requires. The legal advisory system and the prosecution say the proceedings were conducted lawfully. Mandelblit was summoned at the defense's request for seven non-consecutive days of testimony, to be followed by cross-examination by the prosecution. The testimony may run past the coming elections.

## What the judges questioned

According to reports, the judges criticized the way approval was given, in particular an oral approval to investigate Netanyahu that was never recorded in an official document. Mandelblit's position is that written documentation of an approval to open an investigation was not needed. The court, by these reports, was not persuaded that this settles the matter.

The point is not procedural trivia. Basic Law: The Government places the investigation of a sitting prime minister under the Attorney General's authority. Whether that authority was exercised, when, and in what form is a question of fact that the court is now examining through the testimony of the person who held the office.

## Interpretation: authority without a paper trail

What follows is interpretation, not a finding. The testimony does not establish bad faith, and it does not by itself establish that any action was unlawful. That question belongs to the court. But it does show something about how the system worked in practice: the chief legal gatekeeper says he did not approve every serious step taken in the investigation of an elected leader, that he preferred to hear about the main ones, and that at least one approval was given orally and left undocumented.

In any other setting, an official who exercises sweeping power over a democratic leader without a written record would be asked how the chain of authority can be checked. Voters elected the prime minister. No one elected the officials who decided how, and by whose signature, he would be investigated. When the person at the top of that chain concedes that things were done which he did not sign, and says "it's possible" that police acted behind his back, the public is entitled to ask who was in fact deciding.

Mandelblit also said that each of the cases justified an indictment in its own right, answering a question about whether he had said he would not have filed charges without Case 4000. The defense is expected to press him on alleged pressure from the then State Attorney and others. How he answers will matter as much as what he conceded today.

## A scene outside the courtroom

At the courtroom entrance, Mandelblit claimed that journalist Ayala Hasson had attacked him; Hasson rejected this and said she had asked him politely. Attorney Kinneret Barashi called out that he owes the public an answer. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said he had not interfered in the proceedings and urged every decent person to reexamine his position. Attorney Effi Naveh sharply criticized Mandelblit.

The reactions will pass. The record will not. The cross-examination will show whether the legal system can explain, in documents and not only in assurances, how an investigation of a sitting prime minister was authorized.