Palestinian doctor probed by police for allegedly blocking colleagues on social media
H. can’t continue her medical residency at Sheba hospital due to ongoing police investigation lasting over 2 months; she says she deleted her accounts weeks earlier
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
A Palestinian doctor who had been doing her medical residency at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv has been under police investigation for more than two months, seemingly for allegedly having blocked Jewish colleagues from seeing her Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Arrested at her place of work, the doctor, identified only as H., was taken for questioning at the local police station because, she was told, she had blocked her work colleagues from her social media accounts, her attorney has said.
Despite such activity not being a crime, a police investigation was launched into the doctor, a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, who claims she had deleted her accounts and did not block any specific users.
Two months on, she has yet to be indicted or have the case closed, despite two requests by her legal representatives, and she is unable to complete her residency at Sheba hospital because of the ongoing police investigation.
The incident, which took place two weeks after the October 7 atrocities — in which Gazan terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages — and the outbreak of war with Hamas, came amid dozens of police investigations and indictments against Arab Israeli citizens and Palestinians for social media posts that allegedly violated laws against incitement and identifying with terrorist groups.
Legal rights organizations have, however, raised concerns that some of these indictments were based on comments that did not meet the bar for incitement and should be protected under freedom of expression laws.
On October 23, police officers from the Or Yehuda police station arrived at Sheba hospital in Ramat Gan, arrested H., who does not wish to be named, took her to the police station for questioning, and confiscated her phone without a court order.
H., 31, who lives in Nablus, is part of a program in which Palestinians from the West Bank can do their medical residency in Israeli hospitals. She has already worked in Sheba for three years of her five-year residency.
She had an entry permit from the Civil Administration, which runs civilian affairs in the West Bank, and no record of criminal activity, said Reut Shaer, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which is representing H.
H. was told during questioning that someone had contacted the police and reported that she had blocked her hospital colleagues from her social media accounts.
She said she had not blocked anyone but rather had deactivated her social media accounts two to three months before she was arrested.
H. said she thought perhaps her colleagues had suspected her of trying to hide something by deleting her accounts — although this, too, would not be grounds for a police investigation.
She was released after being questioned, and the police have not contacted her since. No indictment has been filed but the investigation has not been closed.
Although she was initially able to continue working, three weeks after her arrest she was informed by Sheba that the Civil Administration had revoked her entry permit due to the open police investigation against her.
“The police officers who conducted the investigation did not point to a legal basis that would indicate a suspicion that a crime had been committed in this case, be it blocking [other users] or deactivating her account,” Shaer wrote in a letter on November 21 to the Or Yehuda police station and the Israel Police’s legal department about the incident.
She demanded the investigation be closed so that H. could return to work at Sheba hospital, and that her police record be erased.
“This is a young woman and an upstanding person without any criminal record who appears to have fallen victim to political persecution, which is on the rise in recent times in places of work and study,” Shaer wrote.
She noted that in dozens of cases since October 7 of citizens being charged with supporting or inciting to terrorism, the indictments have swiftly followed the initial arrest. And she pointed out that when such people were released from police custody it was under restrictive conditions, but H. had been released unconditionally.
The police have yet to reply to that letter or a follow-up one sent in December.
A spokesperson for the Dan police district said in response that the investigation was ongoing, but said he could not comment further.
ACRI and other groups have expressed concern about the large number of police investigations and indictments against Arab Israeli citizens on charges of incitement and identifying with terrorist groups since the war began.
Following the October 7 atrocities, the State Attorney’s Office gave the police blanket authorization to open investigations on suspicion of incitement to terrorism, identifying with terrorist groups and similar charges without its prior approval, and to keep suspects in custody until the end of criminal proceedings against them in “appropriate cases.”
Some 130 indictments have been filed against people accused of having violated such laws since October 7, almost exclusively Arab Israelis. In many of those cases the charges relate to activities such as sharing videos of the October 7 atrocities with approving comments. Others are less clear-cut.
In one incident, Arab Israeli singer and research doctor Dalal Abu Amneh was arrested on charges of behavior that may disturb public order for having posted on Facebook and Instagram on October 7 the message “There is no victor other than Allah” with a Palestinian flag next to it.
In another incident, the Haaretz daily reported that Mohand Taha, a stand-up comic, posted a story on Instagram with the caption “The eye weeps for the residents of Gaza.” Forty minutes, later, he was arrested by 20 police officers on charges of supporting a terrorist group.
“There is hysteria among the general public, and the police and law enforcement agencies have an extremely itchy trigger finger in these investigations,” said Shaer.
“We wouldn’t hear stories like this a few months ago,” she added, in reference to H. and the ongoing investigation against her.
