Pegasus is a malware product created by the Israeli firm NSO. (Representative)
Jerusalem:
Police used Pegasus spyware to hack the phones of dozens of prominent Israelis, including the son of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, activists and senior government officials, an Israeli newspaper reported on Monday.
The blast revelation is the latest from business daily Calcalist, which previously reported that police used Pegasus against leaders of the Netanyahu protest movement without court authorization.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said that “following recent publications” he had asked Public Security Minister Omar Barlev to set up “an external and independent inquiry commission headed by a judge” to investigate the allegations.
“As far as irregularities and failures are found by the Commission, they will be dealt with in accordance with law,” Shabtai said in a statement.
Pegasus is a malware product created by the Israeli firm NSO at the center of a months-long international scandal that revealed it was used by governments around the world to target activists, politicians, journalists and even states. To spy on the chiefs of
Israel has come under fire for allowing the export of invasive technology to states with poor human rights records, but the revelations from Calcalist have sparked a domestic scandal and several state investigations.
Ahead of Monday’s report, the attorney general, the state comptroller and the Justice Ministry’s privacy watchdog have all announced investigations into the possible use of Pegasus on Israelis.
In its latest report, Calcallist said dozens of people were targeted who were not suspected of any criminal conduct, and that police had not received the necessary court approval.
These include senior leaders of the ministries of finance, justice and communications, the mayor and the Ethiopian-Israeli who led protests against alleged police misconduct.
In another revelation that shook Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, Calcallist also reported that Ilan Yeshua, the former chief executive of the Walla news site, was also targeted.
Avner Netanyahu, one of the premier’s sons, was also on the list. “I am really shocked,” he wrote on Facebook.
Netanyahu is accused of trying to trade regulatory favors with media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage, including Vala. He denies the allegations.
His lawyers on Monday demanded that the trial be put on hold till the latest revelations are investigated.
The trial also suffered a setback last week when several Israeli broadcasters reported that police may have used spyware on state witness Shlomo Filber, Netanyahu’s former aide.
Those reports, which Netanyahou described as “earthquakes”, did not mention Pegasus.
Pegasus is a surveillance program that can trigger a phone’s camera or microphone and harvest its data.
NSO has denied persistent wrongdoing during the multi-stranded Pegasus scandal, stressing that it does not operate the system once it has been sold to customers and does not have access to any data collected. There is no access.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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