Will investigate domestic use of Pegasus spyware: Israel

NEW DELHI: The Israeli government announced it would investigate claims that the police had used spyware created by companies including the NSO Group, a surveillance firm that has drawn global criticism, against its citizens without court order, The New York Times reported.

On Monday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the deputy attorney general was "looking quickly into" the claims, while the Public Security Minister Omer Barlev said he would begin an official state inquiry.

The efforts reflect Israel's most significant interventions in the NSO controversy since the Israeli firm began attracting global scrutiny nearly six years ago, the report said.

The allegations have caused a brief delay in the corruption trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, Bennett's predecessor, amid claims that the police illegally hacked the phone of a key trial witness.

Netanyahu's allies have called for the trial to be scrapped entirely, The New York Times reported.

The moves reflected the rising concerns about the use of NSO products within Israel, where the company - blacklisted in the US and long a target of criticism outside Israel - was for years spared significant domestic scrutiny because it was not widely seen as a threat to Israeli citizens.

News organisations and watchdogs have exposed how NSO's flagship product, Pegasus, was sold with the permission of the Israeli Defence Ministry to authoritarian governments who used it to hack the phones of foreign activists, lawyers and politicians. Palestinian officials have also accused the Israeli government itself of using the spyware against Palestinians.

The New York Times recently reported how Netanyahu's government used the sale of the product to extract political favors from foreign countries, a claim Netanyahu denied.

The Times also found that the US government bought but never used NSO spyware, before outlawing the company last year.

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