High Court orders freeze to new police anti-incitement body reportedly looking to implicate ordinary citizens

The High Court of Justice issues a temporary order to freeze the “proactive monitoring” of individuals on social media by the police’s new incitement department, following reports that the fledgling body has been illicitly tracking the online activity of ordinary citizens.

In the ruling, Justice Yechiel Kasher says the practice is forbidden without approval from the State Attorney’s Office in the absence of suspicion that a criminal offense has been committed.

The ruling is handed down in response to a petition against the body’s activities filed by The Democrats MK Efrat Rayten, alongside the left-wing Zulat Institute.

Earlier this month, the Kan public broadcaster reported that the officer in charge of the incitement department had urged officers to send him names of people who “bother” them, with the goal of monitoring their social media and potentially launching investigations into their posts.

Ch. Supt. Udi Ronen, who heads the department, allegedly wrote to a WhatsApp group: “Send me targets and names that interest or bother or are known to you. We will see what and if we can do anything against them from the perspective of social media or more.”

“Just send every name that comes to mind, what do you care? Maybe we’ll find an interesting way to take him down and help,” the message continues, as seen in a screenshot included in the report.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees police, founded the department earlier this year in a bid to transfer responsibility for terror-linked incitement cases from the investigations and intelligence division, headed by Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt.

The department’s official status remains undefined, but it appears to be handling at least some incitement-related cases after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara called on police to immediately halt the fledgling body’s operations.

In her letter to police chief Danny Levy two weeks ago, she claimed that the surveillance activities were conducted without a “sufficient evidentiary basis.”