Police said to stage fake raid during Ben Gvir’s ‘governance tour’ in mixed city

While touring Lod and Ramle alongside police last night, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was filmed walking between several men who appeared to have been detained. However, Haaretz reports that it is doubtful that any of those pictured were actually arrested.

The far-right minister visited the two mixed cities in a “governance tour” with officers and Border Police fighters as they carried out enforcement operations in Arab neighborhoods. He was accompanied by Central District police commander Yair Hetzroni and outgoing Lod station commander Kobi Yagen during part of his visit.

Outside a home in Lod’s Rakevet neighborhood, Ben Gvir walks alongside Yagen, who tells the minister that police had just raided the building, which belongs to the Abu Zkika family.

Ben Gvir is then filmed walking between men lying on the ground, face down with their hands covering their heads — giving the impression that officers had arrested them. Speaking to the camera, the minister says the police’s Yamam unit employed “large forces and work in order to defeat this phenomenon of shootings and weapons.”

However, Haaretz reports that the men pictured on the ground were not actually detained criminals. They were supposedly set free after Ben Gvir left, with the exception of one person who was detained for questioning in relation to a different case and released afterwards.

Two police sources speaking to the outlet say that no suspicious items were found in the compound, with one claiming that the operation was “all one big show in the minister’s honor.”

Police reject the Haaretz report as “baseless.” Responding to the report, police say the operation was “carried out in accordance with the law and on a judicial order, to thwart violent crime on the Arab street as [is done] every day, and not as a spectacle as is claimed.”