Pegasus enters the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Spyware has made it possible to spy on the phones of executives and journalists around the world. The case was revealed this summer by Forbidden Stories, of which Radio France’s investigation unit is a part. This time, it was the Israeli authorities who infiltrated the phones of six Palestinians with the software. The people concerned work for the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs or for Palestinian human rights organizations.
It all started with suspicions. In October 2021, seeing that his phone was doing strange things, like making calls he hadn’t made, Ghassan Halaika, a field researcher for the Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq, approaches the FrontLine Defenders (FLD) group to ask them to investigate this phone. They do their research and discover that the Pegasus software had been installed there since July 2020.
As a result, research is extensive, not only with al-Haq employees, but also with the other five Palestinian civil society organizations that Israel recently referred to as “terrorists.” They are verified with Amnesty International and CitizenLab. Result: five other devices were infected with this software, between July 2020 and April 2021.
Ubai al-Abudi, director of the Bisan center for research and development, is among those known to be concerned. franceinfo met him in Ramallah, Monday, November 8. “We are in danger, and we do not say it lightly, explains Ubai al-Abadi, They can play with my data: they can manipulate it, they can download whatever they want on my phone, they can go to any site and say that I was the one who viewed them, that’s the kind madness ! It is a total violation of my privacy, a total violation of my rights and it endangers everyone we have worked with, whether diplomats, activists, Palestinians or internationals. , and it’s systematic. “
“I’m a father too, I have three very young children. And it’s really scary for us as a family.”
Ubai al-Abudi, targeted by Pegasus spywareto franceinfo
The phone of Salah Hamouri, a Franco-Palestinian lawyer, whose Jerusalem residency status Israel withdrew in mid-October, has also been infiltrated since last April. “Until now, we cannot say exactly who is responsible. We know that [Pegasus] has offices in Herzliya, Israel, he suggests. By phone, I was in contact with the Élysée, with the Quai d’Orsay, the Consul General of France. Everything is monitored, my lawyers … I will file a complaint in France against the people who are responsible, against the main company, to force them to stop this kind of espionage. ”
Like him, all denounce systematic targeting. Spyware parent company NSO had previously clarified that Pegasus would not spy on any number beginning with the +972 area code, Israeli numbers. However, four of the six concerned are Israeli numbers and belong to residents of East Jerusalem.
Of particular interest is the fact that four hacked phones exclusively used SIMs issued by Israeli telecoms companies with Israeli (+972) phone numbers. NSO Group has said that exported versions of Pegasus cannot be used to hack Israeli phone numbers. pic.twitter.com/nsnX0yHe3l
– Citizen Lab (@citizenlab) November 8, 2021