Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi called Thursday for a probe into allegations that the country’s Channel 12 News broadcaster was tipped off about the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” against Iran.
“I don’t deal in conspiracies,” the minister told Channel 1. “If something like this did happen, in my view, it is very serious.”
Karhi was responding to allegations by Channel 14‘s Yaakov Bardugo, a commentator close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier this week said that Channel 12 News appeared unusually prepared to go on air on Shabbat, with a presenter and commentators already in makeup minutes after the opening shots of the war.
“At 8:16 a.m., Yonit Levi was already in the studio, in makeup, together with Nir Dvori. I’m telling you here, based on information I received, they did not sleep in the studio this past month,” the minister said on Sunday.
Around 8:10 a.m. on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces’ Home Front Command sent out a mass alert, ordering Israelis to remain close to bomb shelters following the strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader.
Guy Soudry, the deputy director for news at Channel 12, responded to Bardugo’s X posts on Tuesday, writing, “I don’t reveal sources, but it’s a person very close to you. ... In my opinion, there’s a chance he called you first, but then realized it’s Shabbat and you’re not broadcasting.”
Karhi told Channel 14 on Thursday that he was only informed of the military operation in Iran when air-raid sirens sounded around 8:10 a.m. on Saturday, during Shabbat morning prayers at synagogue.
“We all went home and then returned once we understood that it was only an early warning indicating that the State of Israel had opened a war,” Karhi explained.
Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev also called for an investigation into the alleged leak on Thursday, telling Channel 14 that she had asked the government to open a probe.
“This is extremely serious. In one of the most recent [Cabinet] discussions, we demanded to know how the leak occurred and who was responsible,” the minister told the channel. “There’s harm here to human life and a risk to pilots who crossed [into Iranian] airspace.”
The IDF planned “Operation Roaring Lion” against the Islamic regime for mid-2026 but moved it up following consultations with the United States, Defense Minister Israel Katz revealed on Wednesday.
“Developments and circumstances—especially what happened inside Iran, the position of the U.S. president and the possibility of creating a combined operation—created the need to move everything up,” Katz told troops during a visit to the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate.
Israeli and U.S. forces continued to jointly attack Iran on Thursday as the IDF announced in the morning that it had begun a “large-scale wave of strikes against infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime across Tehran.”
The IDF said on Wednesday that the IAF launched 5,000-plus munitions since the start of the operation, focusing heavily on the Tehran region.
