Shin Bet investigators presented the police and the State Attorney’s Office with information about transfers amounting to hundreds of thousands of shekels, which are suspected of having originated from foreign sources as part of attempts to influence the 26th Knesset elections. However, investigators have not yet been able to determine how the money was used. This was reported yesterday (Friday) by Roy Yanovsky on Kan News.
According to the report, the material presented at the first meeting of the joint investigation team does not, at this stage, correspond to the scale of activity described in the intelligence information that the Shin Bet provided to the Central Elections Committee at the beginning of the week. That information raised suspicions of large sums of money being transferred from foreign sources as part of an organised operation that may have involved thousands of people across the country.
However, security officials told Kan News that additional intelligence information concerning transfers amounting to millions of shekels is expected to be passed on to the investigation team in the coming days. Therefore, the scope of the findings presented so far does not necessarily reflect all the material held by the Shin Bet, and the investigation is ongoing.
Another issue being examined as part of the investigation is the use of fuel cards (specialised payment cards used to buy fuel and oil) during the election campaign. According to the report, an inquiry conducted with fuel companies has not so far revealed purchases on an unusual scale compared with previous election campaigns. The companies explained that the purchase of fuel cards by political parties is a practice that also takes place during other election campaigns.
Nevertheless, investigators are examining whether the cards were used in violation of the law, including by being given to voters as an inducement. At this stage, no connection has been found between the suspected foreign funding and the distribution of fuel cards, and the two issues are being investigated separately.
As reported by Davar, representatives of the Shin Bet, police and State Attorney’s Office met for the first time on Thursday to coordinate the continuation of the investigation, following disagreements between the bodies over investigative authority and the transfer of intelligence materials. On Friday morning, it was reported that the head of the police Investigations and Intelligence Division, Major General Boaz Balat, had instructed police officers not to transfer information to the Shin Bet or respond to requests for assistance relating to the affair without his approval.
The chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Noam Sohlberg, who ordered an investigation into the suspicions, clarified at the beginning of the week that the information presented to him did not undermine the election results as a whole. On Wednesday, the Central Elections Committee approved the official results and submitted them to President Isaac Herzog. The investigation is ongoing, and no determination has yet been made that the suspected foreign funding led to the distortion of the voting results.