Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Sep 01, 2025

Palestinians use social media to out the Israeli undercover agents haunting their protests

Palestinians use social media to out the Israeli undercover agents haunting their protests

Mista’arvim carry out sometimes violent arrests but demonstrators are increasingly effective at countering them

Last May, as war in Gaza raged and clashes over Palestinian access to Jerusalem intensified, large protests swept across almost every Arab and mixed city in Israel. In Haifa, the Israeli coastal city with a mixed Arab and Jewish population, Yousef Ibrahim attended almost every demonstration.

Over the years, the activist and organiser from Daburiyya, an Arab village in the north of Israel, has had his fair share of confrontations with Israeli undercover agents who pose as Arab citizens, known as Mista’arvim. But this time was different, he said.

Previously, the agents had been a ghostly presence, more sensed than seen, but this time, activists like Ibrahim, along with legal organisations, sent out warnings on WhatsApp and Telegram groups to raise awareness about the presence of these agents – and instructions on how to avoid being arrested by them.

Unlike in the past, when they would run away from Mista’arvim, Ibrahim and his fellow activists had begun openly confronting them and even directly clashing with agents, he said. The shift in the power dynamic might mean that these agents are not as powerful as they once were.

“The strongest of us marched in the front row” holding hands to protect the thousands walking behind them at a Haifa protest in May 2021, recalled Ibrahim. “Then the stun grenades and rubber bullets starting going off. They dragged away two girls and a guy, but we managed to pull them back in. It was hard but we did it.”

Mista’arvim, a word derived from Arabic that translates as “those who live among the Arabs”, are elite special operations units which include Jewish, Bedouin and Druze recruits developed by Israel’s powerful military and intelligence services. Inside Israel, where Palestinian citizens are subject to civil law rather than the military law that applies in the Occupied Territories, the agents carry out intelligence gathering including observing protests to identify organisers and recurring faces.

A Palestinian demonstrator gestures as he is pushed by border police officers during a protest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.


The Mista’arvim also have law enforcement powers, and in recent years have become notorious for conducting arrests in which plainclothed agents infiltrate a crowd and then suddenly abduct a suspect.

According to Esmat Omar, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs and intelligence, one of the goals of these units is to create an atmosphere of mistrust, fear, and paranoia among protesters “because you can’t really know if this person next to you [at a protest] is another protester like you, or an undercover agent that can abduct you at any moment or pull out a weapon”.

Palestinian activists, lawyers and young people say Mista’arvim deployment against a country’s specific ethnic minority is undemocratic. Israel has only recently admitted to using them against its own citizens.

In a statement, the Israel police said: “The border police’s undercover Mista’arvim units operate in various sectors throughout the country, with their main missions being disguised activity against crime gangs, dealing with disorderly conduct with advanced capabilities and fighting terrorism.

“We will continue to act with determination while using all the means at our disposal, all for the sake of maintaining the safety and security of all citizens of the State of Israel.”

Messages have spread in WhatsApp groups advising young protesters to cover their faces at all times to avoid being filmed by Mista’arvim; to wear clothes that fully cover their skin so they won’t be easily injured by stun grenades or teargas; to write down a lawyer’s number on their arms in case they get arrested and their phones are taken away; and to make their waists visible and look out for those whose shirts are not tucked into their trousers, hiding guns in their belts, as they might be Mista’arvim.

Unlike during previous uprisings – most notably the first and second Intifadas – the agents’ presence during May’s protests in Arab and mixed cities in Israel is well documented due to the rise of social media and mobiles.

Palestinian youths take cover from police behind a sheet of corrugated iron in 2000. The second intifada erupted in September that year.


Two Palestinians and two Israelis died during the May clashes, while hundreds on both sides were injured, in the worst violence in Israel in years.

This protest was part of a nearly month-long uprising across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories triggered by expulsion threats facing Palestinian families in a neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, which escalated into an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. A total of 256 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed, along with 13 people in Israel.

Although Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about a fifth of the population, the community have often been seen as passive observers in the 74-year-long conflict. In May, however, they showed an unprecedented level of solidarity by protesting in large numbers.

The protests turned violent in mixed cities and a widespread campaign of arrests began: about 2,000 people were arrested by the Israeli police, 91% of whom were Arab, according to police reports.

Embedded in this chaos were Mista’arvim. Rawan Bisharat, an activist from Jaffa, said these units were no longer bothering to operate in the shadows. “For me, it’s like they came out of the closet.” She recalled that at one Jaffa protest she suspected one man to be an undercover agent. “To my surprise, he said: ‘Yes, I’m here, and there are another 19 of us here, but we are not bothering you, are we?’”

Afnan Khalifa, a lawyer and activist from I’bilin, alleged that Mista’arvim arrests were usually more violent than those of regular police because they did not wear identifying name badges. “They feel freer to use violence because they are anonymous,” she said.

Palestinian citizens of Israel have long complained that their government and police are working against them. Sixty-five laws in the Israeli constitution explicitly discriminate against the country’s Arab population and classify them as second-class citizens, according to the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

In March 2021, Adalah sued the Israeli police over the illegal deployment of undercover Mista’arvim agents who were filmed violently arresting and attacking protesters. Adalah says these practices violate the democratic right to peaceful protest and argues that the Mista’arvim presence in Arab cities challenges the status of Israel as a democracy.

Creating two separate systems of law enforcement was “one of the characteristics of the apartheid regimes that are prohibited in the world and which contravene international law”, said the Adalah lawyer Wissam Sharaf.

The Hebrew University law faculty’s Ido Rosenzweig agrees. “Israel has an ongoing problem with racial discrimination under international law,” he said, so “if the goal is racial profiling, then you have a problem.”

However, he added that there were no limitations on the use of undercover units for law enforcement purposes within the state borders, “as long as they identify themselves as a law enforcement agent [when conducting an arrest], and they’re operating in a manner that won’t cause additional harm or risk anyone’s life.”

In October 2020 several intelligence officers in civilian dress arrested Yusuf Ibrahim at a protest, interrogated him for three days and then released him without charge. He said that his arrest occurred after a Mista’arvim agent he had outed at a previous protest reported him to the police, claiming Ibrahim was inciting violence and threatening to kidnap soldiers. The police did not find any evidence of that.

Ibrahim said he would continue to organise protests and be on the frontlines chanting and leading the crowds, but he envisioned a long struggle against a shadowy adversary.

“He was out to get me because I was out to get him. I still see him at every protest I attend, lurking in the back, watching my every move, and reporting back to the police. Every single protest.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
×