Jonatan Urich, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, built an AI-powered media monitoring tool for Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, and left its code publicly visible online, Haaretz reported Thursday.
According to the report, the tool detects any mention of the couple in real time and sends an immediate alert when a story is spreading and may need a response. Urich built it using the AI model Claude. It also tracks various politicians and parties and produces a media summary for the prime minister twice a day.
Haaretz said the exposed code also revealed a security vulnerability, which was fixed after the paper asked for comment.
The report is the second time this week Urich has been in the headlines. On Wednesday, he filed a NIS 260,000 libel suit against Israel Hayom, reporter Bini Ashkenazi, and editor Omer Lachmanovitch over an August report, citing a security source, that Netanyahu's advisers leaked classified information to Qatar. Urich calls the report false.
Urich already faces criminal charges in a separate case. In June, prosecutors filed an amended indictment against him in the "Bild" affair, charging him with passing and holding classified information and destroying evidence, with a clause alleging intent to harm state security. Prosecutors also asked that he be kept away from the Prime Minister's Office and from any facility holding classified information.
He is also a suspect in the Qatargate investigation. Urich denies wrongdoing in both cases.
