Israel’s attorney general has ordered police to open a criminal investigation into two unspecified matters involving the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Channel 10 television said on Wednesday.
When asked, a spokeswoman for Israel’s justice ministry declined to respond to the report.
Netanyahu has in the past denied wrongdoing in the purchase of submarines from Germany, where media have reported a potential conflict of interest involving his lawyer.
The Channel 10 report said one of the two cases that the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, had been examining was not known to the public.
May's hypocrisy and blatant Trump-ass-licking slating of Kerry's speech hasn't gone down too well. She really doesn't have a fucking clue, about anything.
US offer blunt response to Theresa May's criticism of John Kerry over Israel
Washington says it is 'surprised' at PM's criticism as it is in line with the UK's own support for a UN resolution condemning settlement activity in the West Bank
Netanyahu has acknowledged receiving money from the French tycoon Arnaud Mimran, who was sentenced to eight years in prison over a €283m (£241m) scam involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and the taxes on them.
Netanyahu’s office said he had received $40,000 in contributions from Mimran in 2001, when he was not in office, as part of a fund for public activities, including appearances abroad to promote Israel.
He has also come under scrutiny over an alleged conflict of interest in the purchase of submarines from a German firm.
Media reports have alleged a conflict of interest over the role played by the Netanyahu family’s lawyer, David Shimron, who also acts for the Israeli agent of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp, which builds the Dolphin submarines.
An Israeli embassy official has been caught on camera in an undercover sting plotting to “take down” members of the British parliament regarded as hostile, including the Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan – an outspoken supporter of Palestinian statehood.
Israel has announced plans to build almost 600 new settlement homes in occupied east Jerusalem, just two days after Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, with officials stating the “rules of the game have changed”.