“They will pay the full price”: Netanyahu adviser’s lawyers threaten legal action as alleged WhatsApp chats circulate two weeks before Israel’s elections

Lawyers for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s adviser Yonatan Urich threatened legal action after alleged WhatsApp conversations attributed to him began circulating on Telegram and a dedicated website, two weeks before Israel’s elections. The messages reportedly involve political figures, journalists and consultants, but their authenticity has not been independently verified.

Urich’s lawyers said anyone who accessed his WhatsApp, published private correspondence or added to or altered the chats would “pay the full price.” They also described sharing the material as a criminal offense.

The leak follows reports that Urich connected his personal WhatsApp account to Ultramsg, a UAE-based messaging service that could access messages and media in unencrypted form. The vulnerability was discovered after source code for an AI media-monitoring tool Urich built using Claude was published on GitHub, reportedly exposing phone numbers and access tokens. It has not been established whether that security exposure led to the current circulation of the chats.

The media-monitoring tool was designed to track coverage and send alerts through WhatsApp. Urich’s connection to the external service and the exposure of technical details in the published code were reported before the alleged chats began circulating.