Pegasus is a malware product manufactured by the Israeli company NSO. (Represent)
Jerusalem:
Police used Pegasus spyware to hack the phones of dozens of prominent Israelis, including the son of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, activists and high-ranking government officials, an Israeli newspaper said. reported on Monday.
The bombshell revelation is the latest from business daily Calcalist, which previously reported that police used Pegasus without court authorization against leaders of the protest movement. anti-Netanyahu.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said that “after recent publications” he asked Minister of Public Security Omer Barlev to set up “an independent and external investigative committee, headed by a judge,” to investigate the allegations.
Shabtai said in a statement: “To the extent that the commission finds irregularities and failures, they will be dealt with in accordance with the law.
Pegasus is a malware product manufactured by Israeli company NSO at the center of an international scandal that dragged on for months after it was revealed that it was being used by governments around the world to spy on track activists, politicians, journalists and even heads of state.
Israel has been criticized for allowing the export of invasive technology to countries with poor human rights records, but Calcalist’s disclosure sparked a domestic scandal and numerous state investigations.
Ahead of Monday’s report, the attorney general, state regulators and the justice department’s privacy watchdog have all announced investigations into the possible use of Pegasus against Israelis.
In its latest report, Calcalist said dozens of people were targeted, who were not suspected of any crime and no police officers received the necessary court approvals.
They include senior leaders from the finance, justice and media ministries, mayors and Ethiopian-Israelis, who have led protests against police misconduct.
In another revelation that rocked Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, Calcalist also reported that key witness Ilan Yeshua, the former chief executive of Walla news site, was also a target.
Avner Netanyahu, one of the prime minister’s sons, is also on the list. “I’m really shocked,” he wrote on Facebook.
Netanyahu allegedly sought to trade regulatory incentives with media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage, including on Walla. He denies the allegations.
His lawyers on Monday asked for the trial to be adjourned until the latest revelations are investigated.
The trial was also affected last week when multiple Israeli television stations reported that police may have used spyware on Shlomo Filber, a former Netanyahu ally turned state witness.
Those reports, which Netanyhau described as an “earthquake”, made no mention of Pegasus.
Pegasus is a surveillance program that can turn on the phone’s camera or microphone and collect its data.
NSO has consistently denied wrongdoing throughout the multi-stakes Pegasus scandal, insisting that it does not operate the system after it is sold to a customer and does not have access to any of the data collected. .
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
