Officials to check into alleged police spyware targets before decision on probe

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is ordering that the 26 people named in a report as having been targeted by police use of a phone spyware be “checked into” before a decision is made on how the government will probe the claims that police used the Pegasus program illicitly, his office says.

The statement from Bennett’s spokesman Matan Sidi does not elaborate on what a check into the 26 people entails. The names include former top officials, members of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s family, and others.

His office says the probe will be carried out in coordination with a “fundamental investigation” by a team under the direction of deputy attorney general Amir Merari, who is already looking into the allegations.

Agents from the Shin Bet security service and the Mossad spy agency will be added to Merari’s team, the statement says.

“Once all results are presented, a decision will be made on how to deal with the subject moving forward,” the statement reads.

According to several unsourced Hebrew media reports, an initial police check found that Pegasus was only deployed against three of the 26 named, and only managed to infect the phone of one of them.