Murder suspects, but also organizers of protests against ex-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: according to the Israeli business daily calcalist, the Israeli police have used, since 2013, the spyware Pegasus against citizens of the country, without any real control and outside any clear legal framework.
Also listen Pegasus: at the heart of a global investigation into spying on phones
Pegasus, published by the Israeli company NSO Group, allows remote control of a phone to be taken almost undetectable. Once installed, the software makes it possible to copy all messages, including those exchanged on secure applications, to tap the phone, or even to access the user’s geolocation. If officially Pegasus can only be used to monitor terrorists and criminals, a series of investigations carried out in the summer of 2021 by seventeen media, including The world, and coordinated by Forbidden Stories had revealed that multiple clients used it to spy on lawyers, human rights activists, journalists or political opponents.
In a January 18 article, calcalist, without revealing the identity of its sources, describes for the first time and in great detail several cases, legitimate or not, in which the spyware was used by the Israeli police.
Until now, and despite significant suspicions, no proof of the use of the software by Israel against its own citizens had been provided: in November 2021, the NGO Frontline Defenders had demonstrated that the phones of several activists of Palestinian human rights had been infected by the spyware, without being able to identify who was behind the operation.
Political monitoring
The most burning revelations of calcalist concern the surveillance of the telephones of several opponents of Benyamin Netanyahu, whose identity has not been specified. “The order to put under surveillance citizens who are not guilty or suspected of any crime was given by senior police officials, without a judicial warrant and without the supervision of a judge”, writing calcalist.
The Israeli police disputed the daily’s reports, saying in a statement that they “acts in accordance with the law, and seeks, when necessary, court decisions [pour la mise sous surveillance de suspects]. » Furthermore, she has neither denied nor confirmed using or having used Pegasus, explaining that she “cannot comment on the tools she uses”. Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev also claimed that no illegal surveillance was being carried out by the police, but announced that checks would be carried out.
For everyday Ha’aretz, “This information, if true, shows how Shin Bet’s culture of secret surveillance [renseignement intérieur israélien] passed on to the police, who, unable to develop such tools themselves, would then have turned to NSO Group”. According to calcalist, Pegasus began to be heavily used by the police after the appointment at the end of 2015 of Roni Alsheikh, previously deputy director of Shin Beth.
