Netanyahu's office linked to Ra'am arrests on Election Day amid election scandal - report

NOVEMBER 15, 2026 21:08Updated: NOVEMBER 15, 2026 21:26People close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are suspected of involvement in the arrest of three activists from the Ra’am on Election Day, according to an investigative report broadcast by N12 on Sunday evening.The report sheds new light on the events that led to the arrests in southern Israel and on the role of officials in the Prime Minister’s Office in passing information to police. It also revealed that Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director David Zini asked on Election Day to wiretap five Arab MKs, as part of the agency’s investigation into suspected foreign interference in the October 27 election.“These events taught me that there will be no more fair elections here,” a senior law enforcement official familiar with the case told N12. “Once the Shin Bet and the police act this way, whether knowingly or as tools, we will not be able to guarantee that the next election will be fair.”In response to the Channel 12 report, the Prime Minister's Office issued a statement roundly denying the allegations, calling the report "another false report wrapped in dramatic music, as part of the serious attempts to silence the election contamination affair."A call from Netanyahu’s officeOn the Monday before the election, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Ido Norden, called the police commissioner’s office with a complaint about Ra’am activists in southern Israel, according to the report. Norden referred officers to a purported intelligence source who, he said, had relevant information, and a police intelligence coordinator contacted the source that same evening.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, speak with members of the public in the city of Beit Shemesh, just hours before polls close on Israel’s general election day, October 27, 2026. (credit: YAAKOV LEDERMAN/FLASH90)The source had until recently worked in the Prime Minister’s Office and was close to the office’s former director-general, Yossi Shelley, the report said. He provided allegedly incriminating information about the three activists, which N12 said later turned out to be baseless. The information was entered into police intelligence systems that evening, and police carried out the arrests on Election Day.The police’s Investigations Division and the office of Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara are now examining whether the information was planted in advance to bolster the complaint from Netanyahu’s office and trigger arrests on Election Day, N12 reported.Raids without warrantsOn Election Day, 14 police officers raided the homes of the three activists. One of those arrested was Dr. Sayaf Abu Riyash, a physician from the Bedouin city of Rahat. In footage obtained by N12’s investigative program Uvda, his wife, Miriam, can be heard asking officers whether they have a search warrant. According to the report, the officers had neither a search warrant nor an arrest warrant at the time.Abu Riyash was arrested anyway, along with two other activists. Police later raised suspicions about large sums of money and Ra’am ballots allegedly meant to buy votes, suspicions the report said later proved exaggerated.Netanyahu publicized the arrests repeatedly throughout Election Day.Netanyahu and Likud cited the Ra’am vote-buying case as evidence of an attempt to steal the election. By November 3, six of the seven suspects in the case had been released from police custody.Shin Bet chief sought to wiretap Arab MKsThe report also revealed that Zini, who additionally sought to arrest Arab MKs, asked on Election Day to wiretap five Arab MKs as part of the foreign-interference probe. The Attorney-General’s Office rejected the request. It was later determined that there was no real evidence of foreign interference rising to the level of undermining the integrity of the election, according to the report.Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg has said that suspicions of foreign interference do not undermine the election’s integrity.N12 also reported on a meeting between Zini and Gadi Eisenkot in the Shin Bet chief’s office two days after the election. According to the report, Zini placed a thick binder on the table.“There is information here going back to 2018 that the Arabs are stealing the elections in Israel. All the Shin Bet chiefs ignored it. I came, and I lifted that stone,” he said.The conduct described in the report has also alarmed senior officials in the Shin Bet and in law enforcement. “The public service will not withstand another period like this; we are on the edge,” one of them said this week.Six days in custodyDuring a hearing on Abu Riyash’s case at the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court, his defense attorney, Ali Abu Laban, asked the police investigator whether the investigation had begun with information from a political source. The investigator did not deny it, saying the answer was in a classified document submitted for the court’s review only.Abu Riyash was held for six days until the court ordered his release. During his detention, police claimed “numerous findings” had been found in his home, though the warrantless search turned up nothing, according to the report. At one point, a police representative even argued that the fact that Abu Riyash is both a doctor and an organizer of campaign gatherings in private homes was “problematic.”Police also did not let him vote on Election Day, the day of his arrest, the report said. His wife, Miriam, who told officers during the raid that she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, gave birth to a daughter on Friday.“By virtue of its mission and its legal duties, and in accordance with the instructions of the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Sohlberg, the Shin Bet investigated serious suspicions of subversion and foreign influence in the context of the election,” the Shin Bet said in response. “As part of this, the service is carrying out various actions in accordance with its legal authority. Publications regarding the targets of the investigation or the tools used in it are not on behalf of the Shin Bet, and they should be treated accordingly.”Follow us on Google