Between 2005 and 2007, Israeli soldier Anat Kamm secretly copied more than 2,000 classified Israel Defense Forces documents while serving as an assistant in the Central Command bureau. After leaving the military, she transferred the files to Haaretz investigative reporter Uri Blau. A 2008 report based on the material alleged that senior commanders had authorized targeted killings of three Islamic Jihad figures despite a 2006 Israeli Supreme Court ruling limiting lethal action when suspects could be safely arrested. The documents reportedly included operational orders, intelligence assessments, deployment plans, meeting minutes, and West Bank warfare doctrine.
Israeli authorities imposed a gag order after Kamm’s arrest in January 2010, barring domestic media from identifying her or describing the case; foreign reporting and the U.S.-based Tikun Olam blog helped circumvent the restriction. Kamm pleaded guilty in February 2011 to leaking classified material under a deal that avoided the more serious charge of damaging national security. She was sentenced to 4½ years in October 2011, reduced to 3½ years by the Supreme Court on 31 December 2012, and released in January 2014 after serving 26 months. Blau received four months of community service in September 2012. The affair intensified debate over military accountability, press freedom, whistleblowing, and the use of secrecy orders to suppress scrutiny of alleged unlawful conduct.
