Arab Israeli educator arrested for TikTok dance video released from custody

An Arab Israeli educator who was arrested earlier this week over a dance video she posted on social media that referenced October 7, the date of Hamas’s massive terror attack, has been released under restrictive conditions, the Israel Police said Wednesday.

The arrest of Entisar Hijaze, who works bringing animals to visit schoolchildren, sparked outrage after observers suggested that the post that was accused of “incitement” was merely a misunderstood TikTok dance trend.

Police nevertheless insisted that the video of Hijaze was posted Monday “alongside the date of the massacre,” October 7, 2023, and deliberately included a song clip with the words “another good time.” Police said that the investigation was continuing.

Hijaze was arrested Tuesday after far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose ministry oversees the police, forwarded her social media post to a police department dedicated to combating online incitement.

Police said they had raided her home in Tamra in northern Israel and released a photograph of Hijaze blindfolded in the back of a police vehicle, adding that the force would “continue to act, locate, and deal with inciters to violence and acts of terrorism.”

Another photograph of uncertain origins, showing Hijaze blindfolded and handcuffed while in front of an Israeli flag, was also circulated on social media.

שרשור סיפורו של חרטא: 2 שרים כבר רקדו על הריקוד של אינתיסאר חיג'אזי מטמרה מדריכה בקרן קרב, גם המשטרה. הכי עצוב זה שלל כלי התקשורת שפרסמו ואיש לא טרח להקדיש 5 דקות לבדיקה בסיסית. זה הסרטון שלה ולטענת המשטרה פורסם אתמול עם כיתוב בעברית כדי להסית לטרור ולהתסיס דווקא ביום הנורא הזה pic.twitter.com/WIAa1B9ANg

— יוסי מזרחי Yossi Mizrachi (@yosimiz1) October 8, 2024

The TikTok post in question was posted on Monday, the day that Israel marked the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.

In the clip, Hijaze is seen dancing to the song “Betty Boop” by Charlie Puth in a school in Nazareth. The clip includes the lyrics “good time,” and the words “On This Day – 7/10/23” appear at the bottom of the video.

However, reporters and online observers noted that the musical clip is a popular one among TikTok dance trends and that many posts on the social media platform use the “On this day” label as part of their videos.

Hijaze’s attorney said the video was made in the Nazareth school where she works on October 7 last year and that she then reposted it on October 7 this year.

“She merely shared a memory from Facebook from a year ago at a time when the scale of the disaster of October 7 was not yet known,” her attorney Ashraf Hegaze told Haaretz on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, we all know that the police have become a tool in the hands of Ben Gvir.”

Police representatives told the court that it was not possible to determine that Hijaze really did post it for the first time last year and not this week.

While the clip appears to have been removed from her TikTok feed, another video Hijaze posted a week after the Hamas massacre last year remains. In the clip, a photograph shows memorial candles under a television screen reporting a week of war. Lyrics from a song playing in the background are shown saying “I know it hurts sometimes, but you’ll get over it, you’ll find another life to live, I know you’ll get over it.” That video is tagged “#israelwar.”

סאגת מעצר המורה מטמרה, פרק 26: הוריה של אינתיסאר חיג'אזי קיבלו הוראה ממשטרת נצרת להגיע הערב לגביית עדות דחופה בעניין תיק החקירה של בתם. בין היתר נשאלו על התנהגותה, על חברותיה ועל העמדות הפוליטיות שלה. למה זה חשוב? לא יודע, כנראה נגזר עלינו. pic.twitter.com/PT9XZO1ACD

— יוסי מזרחי Yossi Mizrachi (@yosimiz1) October 9, 2024

The Fake Reporter investigative organization found that Hijaze’s social media accounts had no history of political or nationalistic activism and that she had previously posted videos expressing sorrow over the war and the death of Israelis.

Adam Shinar, a law professor at Reichman University, noted on X that Hijaze had used the “On this day” feature several other times and that she had expressed sadness online at the murder of Yonat Or from Kibbutz Be’eri.

Most of Hijaze’s TikTok feed, under the username PinkIguana6, is videos of her introducing animals to classrooms of children, as well as similar dance videos and TikTok trends and filters.

Writing on X after police issued their statement about her arrest, Ben Gvir said that he had “zero tolerance for incitement and terrorism supporters.”

The police, however, did not arrest her on suspicion of incitement to terrorism, incitement to violence, or related crimes, but rather on suspicion of “conduct disturbing public order.”

The State Attorney’s Office said in response to the incident that given “the circumstances of the incident as they have been published, it is not clear why the police decided to handcuff the suspect and blindfold her.” It also noted that the police did not make any request to investigate Hijaze for incitement.

State Attorney Amit Aisman recently accused the police of circumventing their obligation to obtain permission from his office for investigations into incitement by arresting people on this lesser charge.

In response to the criticism, Ben Gvir praised the police for the arrest and said it was “crazy that there are officials in the State Attorney’s office who haven’t internalized the fact that Israel has a rule of law.”