The key facts

  • Likud, according to Haaretz, has spent millions of shekels recruiting people to film voters in Arab communities
  • The teams operate outside polling stations to avoid falling under the rules for official observers
  • There is no confirmation that Netanyahu personally took part in discussions of the plan

Plan to film voters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party plans to send teams on Tuesday, the day of the general election, to film Arab voters outside polling stations — footage that could be used for claims of election fraud if the party suffers heavy losses. This is reported by the newspaper Haaretz, cited by the Anadolu agency. According to the newspaper, Likud has spent millions of shekels recruiting and paying workers who are to film voters in Arab communities and relay information to the party headquarters in real time.

How the scheme works and what the party says

The teams, set up in recent weeks, will operate specifically outside polling stations rather than inside — this allows them to avoid the strict rules governing the activity of official election observers. According to Haaretz, senior Likud officials have also discussed launching a campaign with claims of vote-rigging in the event of significant losses for the party. Sources close to Netanyahu said some party figures are pressuring the prime minister to adopt this strategy and that he is considering the proposal; however, there is no evidence that Netanyahu personally attended meetings where the plan was discussed.

Parallel with the US in 2020 and the 2022 'rehearsal'

The proposed campaign, Haaretz notes, resembles Donald Trump's claims of widespread fraud after his defeat in the 2020 US presidential election. A senior Likud official involved in election operations described the party's allegations of violations in the 2022 election as preparation for the current vote: '2022 was a rehearsal for the current election,' the newspaper quotes him as saying. According to the outlet's sources, the footage may be circulated as purported evidence of fraud, even though the teams have no legal authority to verify voters' identities. Separately, party observers across the country are to report unusual incidents to a special 'election fraud' monitoring center.

Context

The claims about the plan appear on election day — the first general election in Israel since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, which Anadolu characterizes as genocidal. It should be noted that the report is based on a single newspaper's account: the only corroboration comes from anonymous Haaretz sources, and the very fact that filming teams have been deployed and a possible fraud campaign is planned remains an allegation that has not been independently verified in available publications.