Last May, as war in Gaza raged and clashes over Palestinian access to Jerusalem intensified<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n Over the years, the activist and organiser from Daburiyya, an Arab village in the north of Israel<\/a>, has had his fair share of confrontations with Israeli undercover agents who pose as Arab citizens, known as Mista\u2019arvim. But this time was different, he said.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 and instructions on how to avoid being arrested by them.<\/p>\n Unlike in the past, when they would run away from Mista\u2019arvim, 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThe strongest of us marched in the front row\u201d holding hands to protect the thousands walking behind them at a Haifa protest in May 2021, recalled Ibrahim. \u201cThen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Mista\u2019arvim, a word derived from Arabic that translates as \u201cthose who live among the Arabs\u201d, are elite special operations units which include Jewish, Bedouin and Druze recruits developed by Israel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Israeli police detain a Palestinian protestor on March 12 2019. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n The Mista\u2019arvim 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cbecause you can\u2019t 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\u201d.<\/p>\n Palestinian activists, lawyers and young people say Mista\u2019arvim deployment against a country\u2019s specific ethnic minority is undemocratic. Israel has only recently admitted to using them<\/a> against its own citizens.<\/p>\n In a statement, the Israel police said: \u201cThe border police\u2019s undercover Mista\u2019arvim 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Messages have spread in WhatsApp groups advising young protesters to cover their faces at all times to avoid being filmed by Mista\u2019arvim; to wear clothes that fully cover their skin so they won\u2019t be easily injured by stun grenades or teargas; to write down a lawyer\u2019s 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\u2019arvim.<\/p>\n Unlike during previous uprisings \u2013 most notably the first and second Intifadas \u2013 the agents\u2019 presence during May\u2019s protests in Arab and mixed cities in Israel is well documented due to the rise of social media and mobiles.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Protesters wave Palestinians flags in front of Israeli solders on Gaza’s border with Israel, east of Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, April 4, 2018. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n The protests turned violent in mixed cities and a widespread campaign of arrests began: about 2,000 people<\/a> were arrested by the Israeli police, 91% of whom were Arab, according to police reports.<\/p>\n Embedded in this chaos were Mista\u2019arvim. Rawan Bisharat, an activist from Jaffa, said these units were no longer bothering to operate in the shadows. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s like they came out of the closet.\u201d She recalled that at one Jaffa protest she suspected one man to be an undercover agent. \u201cTo my surprise, he said: \u2018Yes, I\u2019m here, and there are another 19 of us here, but we are not bothering you, are we?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Afnan Khalifa, a lawyer and activist from I\u2019bilin, alleged that Mista\u2019arvim arrests were usually more violent than those of regular police because they did not wear identifying name badges. \u201cThey feel freer to use violence because they are anonymous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Arab population and classify them as second-class citizens, according to the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.<\/p>\n In March 2021, Adalah sued the Israeli police over the illegal deployment of undercover Mista\u2019arvim 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\u2019arvim presence in Arab cities challenges the status of Israel as a democracy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Israeli-police-detain-a-Palestinian-protestor-on-March-12-2019.jpeg\")
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