N12 Says Netanyahu’s Office Helped Stage Election-Day Arrests

Channel 12’s Uvda reported Sunday that Ido Norden, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, made the complaint that led to the arrests a day before the October 27 election.

Chief of Staff Tips Police

Norden called the office of Police Commissioner Daniel Levy on election eve and alleged that Ra’am activists in southern Israel were preparing to pay voters, Uvda said. He also directed officers to a purported intelligence source.

A police coordinator contacted that person the same evening, the report said. N12 said the source was a former Prime Minister’s Office employee close to former director-general Yossi Shelley, and that the information was entered into police systems that night.

Warrantless Raids in the Negev

At dawn on election day, 14 officers raided the homes of three Ra’am activists without search or arrest warrants, N12 reported.

One of those detained was Dr. Sayaf Abu Riyash, a physician from Rahat. Footage obtained by Uvda shows his wife asking whether the officers had a warrant, which they did not, the report said.

Police later publicized suspicions of large sums of cash and Ra’am ballot slips meant to buy votes, claims N12 said later proved exaggerated. The search of Abu Riyash’s home found nothing, and he was held for six days before the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court ordered his release.

The two other men were freed days later without charges.

Netanyahu Amplifies the Arrests

Netanyahu repeatedly highlighted the detentions throughout election day, Uvda said, as part of a campaign claiming that “Arabs are stealing the election.”

After the vote, Likud accused Arab parties of stealing the election through fraud and intimidation. The arrests, N12 said, ultimately led nowhere.

The Prime Minister’s Office denied any improper role, saying Norden “fulfilled his duty as expected of any law-abiding citizen” by connecting the source to police, and calling further alleged involvement “false and grounds for defamation.”

Investigators Examine Planted Intelligence

Uvda said Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s office and the police Investigations Division are examining whether the intelligence was planted to bolster Norden’s complaint.

It also said Shin Bet chief David Zini sought on election day to wiretap five Arab lawmakers over suspected foreign interference, a request the attorney general’s office blocked. N12 said there was later no substantial evidence that such interference had undermined the vote, consistent with a separate Shin Bet inquiry after the election.

Two days after the vote, Zini told Gadi Eisenkot that intelligence dating to 2018 showed “the Arabs are stealing the elections in Israel,” N12 reported.

The Shin Bet said it investigated “serious suspicions of subversion and foreign influence” on instructions from Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg, and that reports about the inquiry’s targets or tools did not come from the agency.