The Justice Ministry on Monday announced that its investigation into the Israel Police's alleged abuse of Pegasus surveillance technology has found "no indication" that the police illegally hacked the mobile phones of dozens of public figures, as claimed in a series of exposés by financial daily Calcalist.
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Pegasus is a powerful tool that allows its operator to infiltrate a target's phone and sweep up its contents, including messages, contacts and location history. Its developer, the NSO Group,has been the focus of a global scandal since mid-July, when the Pegasus Project, a group of 17 media organizations revealed that the classified technology was being used to hack the phones of journalists, government officials, and human rights activists around the world. In November, the US Commerce Department blacklisted the company, saying its tools had been used to "conduct transnational repression."
Over the last two weeks, Calcalist alleged that the police had made unprecedented use of the spyware, originally developed as a counterterrorism measure, against civilians, including politicians and government functionaries, social activists, protesters, public servants, journalists, and businesspeople.
According to the reports, this "intelligence phishing expedition" was conducted prior to any official investigation against the targets and without judicial warrants, despite police officials knowing that any information obtained sans such warrants was inadmissible in court.
The scope of the reported abuse rattled the political system and the government was called on to name a state commission of inquiry to investigate the matter.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett had ordered a review of the allegations, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara instructed the Israel Security Agency and Mossad intelligence agency to weigh in on the probe, as they are the only two agencies in Israel that are familiar with the full scope of Pegasus and similar spyware. Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar then named Deputy Attorney-General Amit Marari to head the investigation.
In its announcement, the Justice Ministry said that Marari and his team found no evidence to support the claims: "There is no indication that police deployed Pegasus software without a court order against people on the list published in the media."
The investigation found that police received authorization to spy on the phones of three of the people on the list, but only one was successfully infiltrated. It said investigators looked into the use of a second type of spyware used by police and also found no signs of wrongdoing.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev welcomed the findings, saying they constituted "a resounding exoneration of the Israel Police across the board. There are many who must now apologize to the police. They must bow their heads and ask the forgiveness of all Israeli police officers and their families – over 30,000 men and women in uniform whose good name was dragged through the mud for weeks.
"As public security minister I am committed to ensuring that police actions are above reproach, but I am also responsible to reinstate [the public's] faith in it, now that it has been so gravely undermined. Together, we will protect democracy and defense the country," he said.
Police officials past and present vehemently denied the allegations. Those denials, along with the lack of evidence uncovered so far, have begun to draw scrutiny on Calcalist's reports.
Former Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, who was heavily implicated in the reports, claimed from the beginning that the allegations were false, stating that such actions would be impossible as the department does not possess Pegasus technology.
Speaking with reporters on Monday, Alsheikh said he was considering suing the daily for defamation. A police source told Israel Hayom that the department was also mulling possible legal action against Calcalist over the damage the reports inflicted on its image and how they undercut the public's confidence in the police force.
"I'm not surprised by the findings," Alsheikh said, adding that "someone will most likely have to pay" for the slander.
For NSO, which has faced mounting criticism over Pegasus, Monday's report was a rare piece of good news.
It said it hoped the conclusions "will result in reporting that no longer relies upon misinformation and political organizations issuing biased and prejudiced reports."
NSO said the misuse of spyware "is a serious matter and all credible allegations must be investigated." It called for "an international regulatory structure" to be put in place to "oversee issues raised by the misuse of cyber intelligence tools."
Meanwhile, Calcalist reporter Tomer Ganon has stood by his work. Over the weekend, he said he would continue to protect his sources. "I risked my good name, not because of naivety, but because I checked the facts," he wrote on Twitter.
An official statement by Calcalist said, "The findings of the interim review by Deputy Attorney-General Amit Marari require serious studying and a re-evaluation of the claims made in the report and we intend to pursue such a review. When this process is concluded we will not hesitate to correct anything that deems correction."
The daily further asserted that Marari's review "fully corroborated Calcalist's exposé that the police are, in fact, using super-invasive spyware technology to infect civilians' phones.
"Warrants issued for wiretaps do not include deploying this type of spyware and there is a need for a significant amendment of the law. The review further names another NSO software the police used to this end," Calcalist said, without naming it.
"It is important to note that the interim review focused only on the names listed in our report," the daily's statement continued. "It clearly says that [Marari's] team has yet to examine many of the key issues raised in the report."
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