博客

A wave of fierce condemnation has erupted across Israel’s political and media spheres, with dozens of public figures charging that outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is orchestrating an attempted coup to cling to power, following his electoral bloc’s defeat in last week’s national vote — a contest marked by record-breaking turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Critics allege Netanyahu is leveraging the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, to discredit the election outcome and erode the legitimacy of Palestinian-led political factions that secured historic representation in the 120-seat Knesset. More than seven days after final preliminary tallies confirmed Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc trailing the opposing coalition, Shin Bet director David Zini, a Netanyahu appointee, has launched a sweeping probe focused on the Palestinian electorate, airing unsubstantiated claims of mass voting fraud, bribery, and foreign meddling with no public evidence presented to back the allegations. The parallel campaign to delegitimize the Ra’am party and the Joint List — the two Palestinian-led factions that won a combined unprecedented 19 Knesset seats — is widely framed by analysts as a deliberate gambit by Netanyahu to avoid ceding control of the premiership.
The crackdown has already drawn widespread outcry: on Tuesday, Shin Bet agents detained Abd Abu Shahadeh, a contributing journalist for Middle East Eye, citing an open “security-related investigation,” while Israeli media outlets confirmed Zini has pushed to summon prominent Palestinian elected political leaders, including Ahmad Tibi, Sami Abou Shahadeh, Mansour Abbas, and Ayman Odeh, for formal questioning.
Senior opposition figures have issued stark warnings about the erosion of Israeli democratic norms. Yair Golan, head of the opposition Democrats party, told reporters on Wednesday that the country’s democratic system was facing existential peril, noting that law enforcement had detained political activists without warrants, the Shin Bet was attempting to compel senior elected officials to submit to questioning with no supporting evidence, and the outgoing Netanyahu administration was refusing to formally acknowledge the verified election results. Hours later, Golan went further, explicitly accusing Netanyahu of attempting to “carry out a coup and seize power by force.” Former prime minister Yair Lapid echoed the accusation the previous day, claiming Netanyahu was working to “crush democracy and steal the elections with the help of sleeper agents of the regime in the security establishment” — a clear reference to Zini, who was installed as Shin Bet chief by Netanyahu last year amid widespread public criticism over his documented far-right ideological leanings. Opposition bloc leader Gadi Eisenkot offered a more measured but equally firm rebuke, stating Netanyahu was leading a coordinated, organized effort to “sabotage Israeli democracy” by inciting street violence against elected officials and systematically undermining the independence of law enforcement institutions.
Israel’s mainstream press has joined the chorus of condemnation, framing the ongoing developments as an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Amos Harel, a veteran correspondent for leading daily Haaretz, wrote in a Wednesday op-ed that Netanyahu, his inner circle, loyalist figures in the security apparatus, and aligned media outlets were “energetically driving Israel into the most critical constitutional crisis in its history.” Harel characterized Netanyahu’s actions as a full “regime coup” that drew directly from the playbooks of authoritarian regimes, pointing to the misuse of secret security services, targeted incitement against ethnic minorities, threats of political violence, and the refusal to recognize verified electoral results. A separate opinion piece published in Calcalist, Israel’s prominent financial news outlet, made identical charges, with journalist Moshe Gorali arguing that the outgoing government’s refusal to accept the election results represented a dangerous, unprecedented escalation, and that the administration was following a “familiar dictatorial-fascist protocol” by deploying a politically loyal intelligence agency to invalidate a free and fair electoral outcome. Ronen Bergman, a senior investigative reporter for Ynet, also publicly stated that Israel was “in the midst of a coup attempt.”
On Wednesday, Israel’s nonpartisan Central Elections Committee formally submitted the fully certified final election results to President Isaac Herzog, formally dismissing all unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud. Despite this official confirmation, the Shin Bet has continued its targeted investigations, which multiple insiders have confirmed lack even foundational supporting evidence. A source with direct knowledge of the Shin Bet’s election-related inquiries told Ynet that Zini was operating with no clear grasp of his official legal mandate, noting that under Israeli law, formal investigations into a sitting Knesset member require far more than uncorroborated speculation. Zini, a former senior Israeli military officer and a settler residing in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, has long maintained close, documented ties to the Israeli settler movement, and has previously publicly stated that Shin Bet directors “have to act according to the law, but they are first and foremost subordinate to the prime minister.”
Ynet reporting shows that security officials reviewed more than 1,000 separate public allegations of election fraud, and none of the claims were found to hold any verifiable credibility. Haaretz further revealed that only one of the dozens of Shin Bet election-related investigations was initiated before voting day, while every subsequent probe targeting Palestinian political leaders and activists was launched only after it became irrefutably clear that Netanyahu’s electoral bloc had lost the parliamentary majority. A senior law enforcement official speaking anonymously to Channel 13 News accused Zini of “throwing out names without evidence and echoing Likud’s talking points” and noted that the Shin Bet director had triggered the most severe crisis of public confidence in the agency seen in decades. The official added that if the investigations ultimately produce no tangible evidence of wrongdoing, Zini’s leadership of the agency cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Separate reporting from Channel 12 News confirmed that the day-to-day operations of the election-related probes are being overseen by Zini’s deputy, who has well-documented close personal ties to Netanyahu, and that the deputy is directing investigative efforts even as career law enforcement officials have repeatedly emphasized there is insufficient evidence to bring formal charges against any of the individuals targeted for questioning.

In a sudden, unheralded pre-dawn operation on Thursday, Israeli military units entered the Palestinian town of Biddu, located northwest of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, and demolished five residential buildings encompassing 12 individual apartments, leaving more than 100 local residents displaced. Witness accounts confirm that Israeli troops deployed stun grenades and tear gas against homeowners upon their arrival, blocking access to the targeted properties and granting families barely any time to evacuate, let alone retrieve their furniture, clothing, documents and other personal possessions before bulldozers moved in to level the structures. One of the affected property owners, Ahmad Abu Eid, explained that the demolished homes belonged to himself, his adult sons and his daughter, and shared his belief that the operation was a deliberate act of retaliation tied to his son Salman, a former Palestinian prisoner released in last year’s cross-border prisoner exchange and subsequently deported to Egypt. Israeli military officials cited a lack of official building permits as the formal justification for the demolitions, noting that the properties sit within Area C of the occupied West Bank. Per the terms of the 1995 Oslo Accords, the West Bank was partitioned into three distinct administrative zones: Area A falls under full Palestinian Authority (PA) administrative and security control, Area B falls under PA civil administration with Israeli security oversight, while Area C remains under full Israeli administrative and security jurisdiction. Palestinian residents have long faced systemic barriers to securing Israeli-issued building permits for construction in Area C, with approval rates so low that nearly all new Palestinian construction in the zone is deemed unauthorised by Israeli authorities. Local municipal and PA officials have pushed back strongly against the operation: the PA’s Jerusalem Governorate labelled the demolitions and mass displacement a dangerous, escalating tactic designed to erode longstanding Palestinian residential presence on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and a clear violation of established international humanitarian law. A member of the Biddu municipal council, Salem Abu Eid, confirmed that two of the five demolished homes had never received formal judicial demolition orders, even after homeowners filed formal legal challenges through Israeli court channels. He added that more than 20 other residential properties in Biddu had previously only received temporary stop-construction notices rather than final demolition mandates, with a team of Palestinian and international lawyers currently processing formal objections to those notices through the Israeli Civil Administration based in the West Bank settlement of Beit El. He also noted that the last prior demolition operation in Biddu occurred several months earlier, when Israeli forces levelled a small wood and tile structure and cleared the town’s public municipal park. He further pushed back against Israeli claims that the targeted homes sat close to the West Bank separation wall, noting that the nearest of the demolished properties stood roughly 700 metres away from the barrier. Local community leaders are now calling on the PA and international humanitarian organisations to deliver financial compensation for the families’ destroyed homes and lost personal property, as well as provide emergency alternative housing or support to rebuild new residential units for the displaced residents. Data released by the Jerusalem Governorate documents a sharp surge in Israeli demolition and land-clearing operations across Jerusalem and its surrounding West Bank peripheries in 2026: over the first nine months of the year, 427 separate operations were recorded, including 66 instances where Palestinian residents were forced to demolish their own homes to avoid steep Israeli state fines, 294 demolitions carried out directly by Israeli military machinery, and 32 separate land-levelling projects. An additional 44 demolition and land-clearing operations were documented in the month of October alone, bringing the total number of such verified actions between January and the end of October 2026 to 471, a figure that covers residential properties, auxiliary agricultural and commercial structures, and undeveloped Palestinian-owned land.

A Palestinian-American designer and human rights advocate has been barred from entering the United Kingdom days before he was scheduled to speak at a London-based charity fundraiser supporting vulnerable communities in Gaza. Mo Hamzeh, who serves as vice-chair and trustee of the Sun of Freedom charity, had secured formal approval for his Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) weeks in advance of his planned Wednesday travel to the UK, only to have the permit abruptly cancelled without detailed justification. The official notification from the UK government cited a generic clause stating authorities were “satisfied that your presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good,” with no supporting evidence or opportunity for Hamzeh to contest the ruling before it took effect.

The move follows targeted advocacy from two prominent pro-Israel entities: the advocacy group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) submitted a formal report to the Home Office on 19 October calling for Hamzeh’s exclusion, while Conservative MP and shadow home secretary Chris Philp publicly urged Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to issue a full entry ban on 30 October. Philp based his call on claims that clothing designs sold by Hamzeh to raise funds for Sun of Freedom contained extremist rhetoric, including a T-shirt with incendiary language comparing Israel’s actions to Nazi atrocities, and an inverted red triangle symbol that Philp claimed was closely affiliated with Hamas. Hamzeh has firmly rejected the allegations, clarifying the inverted red triangle is a longstanding symbol of Palestinian statehood, and the Sun of Freedom charity has publicly stated it “unequivocally reject antisemitism and the targeting of Jewish people, as well as terrorism and violence against civilians.”

Hamzeh, a New Jersey resident whose family was displaced during the 1948 Nakba, told Middle East Eye he is launching a full legal challenge against the UK government’s “baseless” decision. He emphasized the event he was set to headline, billed as “Palestine: A Journey Through Heritage and Hope,” was a cultural celebration of Palestinian art, food, heritage and community stories, not a platform for incitement. He also highlighted what he frames as a glaring double standard: “While Israeli soldiers who have participated in genocide are free to roam the streets of London, I am barred from flying in to attend a fundraiser for a charity that provides lifesaving food and water to families in Gaza.”

The case has drawn renewed scrutiny over longstanding concerns about a growing chilling effect on Palestine solidarity activism across the UK. Data from the European Legal Support Centre’s Britain Index of Repression database shows UKLFI, founded in 2011, is cited 128 times as a leading actor behind targeted pressure campaigns against individuals, educational institutions, charities and public bodies that criticize Israeli state policy or provide humanitarian aid to Palestinian communities. The centre’s analysis notes UKLFI frequently uses formal complaint letters, legal threats and public shaming campaigns to push public bodies to cancel lawful Palestine-related events or open disciplinary proceedings against activists. This incident is the latest in a string of controversial entry bans targeting pro-Palestine American public figures, following earlier high-profile exclusions of political commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur earlier this year, which were widely reported to stem from their public criticism of Israeli government actions. A Home Office spokesperson declined to comment on the specific case when contacted by Middle East Eye, issuing a standard statement noting the department does not routinely discuss individual immigration cases, and reaffirming its commitment to combating antisemitism and stopping the spread of hatred or incitement to violence.

A regional German court overseeing the high-profile trial of five transnational activists, dubbed the “Ulm Five,” has formally dismissed all defence applications to call specialized expert witnesses who were set to testify on links between the local Ulm operations of Israeli defence conglomerate Elbit Systems and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The five defendants — Daniel Tatlow-Devally, Zo Hailu, Crow Tricks, Vi Kovarbasic and Leandra Rollo, hailing from Germany, Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom — were arrested on September 8 following an alleged break-in at Elbit’s Ulm facility, where prosecutors claim they caused extensive damage to the building’s glass facade and destroyed office hardware including computers, monitors and telecommunications equipment. The group has already spent more than 12 months in pretrial detention ahead of the current proceedings.

According to statements shared with independent news outlet Middle East Eye, the defence legal team had spent months submitting formal requests to summon expert witnesses who could corroborate that technology developed at the Ulm site contributes directly to alleged genocide in Gaza. Under German criminal procedure rules, courts are legally required to hear summoned defence witnesses unless they rule the proposed evidence inadmissible. The defence team proceeded to physically bring two qualified experts to court in mid-October to force consideration of their testimony: first, weapons technology researcher Dr Shir Hever, who was prepared to outline direct operational connections between the Tactical Data Links (TDL) laboratory based at the Ulm Elbit site and Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. Hever’s planned testimony explained that the TDL network facilitates real-time sharing of target coordinates between Israeli military personnel, with data routed to the Amazon and Google-run Nimbus Project cloud platform, where AI systems process information to generate targets at industrial scale, enabling unprecedented mass targeting in the Gaza conflict. After a full day of closed deliberations, presiding Judge Kathrin Lauchstadt rejected Hever’s testimony, claiming without supporting evidence that software developed at the Ulm lab bore no relevance to Israeli military operations in Gaza. Two days later, the court similarly rejected testimony from international law Professor Isabel Feichtner, who had been scheduled to present expert analysis on allegations of genocide in Gaza.

Defence attorney Benjamin Düsberg, who represents defendant Tatlow-Devally, lambasted the dual rulings as fundamentally “absurd,” noting that the court had not allowed any evidence on the alleged Elbit-Gaza operational connection to be presented at all, making its pre-emptive dismissal of the experts’ proposed testimony entirely unsubstantiated. In response, the full defence team has filed a formal motion demanding Judge Lauchstadt’s recusal on grounds of apparent bias, with Düsberg telling assembled reporters outside the courtroom that the entire proceedings amounted to “a pure show trial.”

Additional concerns raised by the defence and family members of the defendants highlight systemic irregularities in the investigation and trial process. Multiple prosecution-called police witnesses have repeatedly invoked either total amnesia regarding key case details or official confidentiality restrictions to avoid answering cross-examination questions, including queries about whether investigators were explicitly instructed by the prosecution not to probe Elbit Systems’ ties to military activity in Gaza. German legal statutes mandate that public prosecutors must investigate both incriminating and exculpatory evidence in any criminal case. Nina Oner, a defence lawyer representing defendant Hailu, noted that every time the defence raised questions about potential involvement of the German interior ministry or domestic intelligence services in the investigation, witnesses refused to answer, citing confidentiality rules. One lead investigating officer, tasked with auditing Elbit’s financial records, admitted in court that he never traced the destination of the 38% of Elbit’s Ulm site profits that were transferred overseas, claiming weapons technology and corporate finance tracking fell outside his official remit. Another officer, responsible for processing the five defendants at the local Ulm-Mitte police station immediately after their arrest, testified that she could not recall any details of her interactions with the group, including whether they had requested access to legal counsel, what time processing occurred, or what detention conditions they were held in. The defendants’ families allege that the group was denied access to lawyers and contact with family members for 12 full hours after their arrest, a violation of standard German due process protocols.

When contacted for comment, the Stuttgart regional court issued a brief statement noting it does not publicly comment on the conduct of individual judges or ongoing active proceedings, while confirming that the two defence expert witnesses had been formally rejected, and no final rulings had been issued on remaining pending defence evidence applications. The Stuttgart State Criminal Police Office also declined to comment, citing standing policy not to discuss details of ongoing active investigations.