Bedouin Doctor Claims Political Motive After Election Day Arrest

A Bedouin clinic director in Rahat has accused police of politically motivated harassment after his unconditional release from custody.

Saef Abu Raesh was arrested on election day as part of an investigation into alleged vote-buying that favored the Ra’am party. He was among three individuals detained on that day. One of the other suspects was released to house arrest, while the third remained in custody. Four additional people were arrested later in the same operation. Three of those four were subsequently placed under house arrest. The fourth had restrictions removed after his lawyer filed an appeal.

Abu Raesh spoke to Haaretz on Monday, the day after a court ordered his release. He stated that investigators showed him no evidence supporting the charges. He described a dawn raid in which police knocked at his door while his pregnant wife and young daughters slept. He said he was taken to a police station in handcuffs, an act he described as deeply humiliating. He also noted that he never cast a ballot, despite officers telling him they would take him to vote.

During a transfer between police stations, Abu Raesh alleged that an officer questioned why Arabs were unhappy with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The officer claimed Ben Gvir had done only good for the community by providing law and order. Abu Raesh said this exchange convinced him the investigation was politically driven. He argued that authorities were discouraging young Bedouins from voting rather than encouraging their integration into the state.

Ben Gvir’s tenure has coincided with a sharp increase in the demolition of Bedouin homes constructed without permits. Annual homicides across Arab society have risen by roughly twofold during the same period. Abu Raesh runs a small clinic in the southern Bedouin town of Rahat. He had organized an effort to encourage residents to vote. Investigators asked which party he urged people to support and whether he understood that his activities could influence who would lead the country.

The dispute over the investigation has intensified following an election in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority. Netanyahu has used the Ra’am allegations to challenge the results. He described the three election-day suspects as senior Ra’am financial operatives and accused them of trying to steal the election. Officials have maintained that the results are valid and that the investigations are limited in scope. A separate investigation into suspected foreign interference reportedly involving Qatar is also underway.

On Sunday, Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg said the election had been conducted properly. He appeared in a video with Shin Bet chief David Zini, the committee’s acting director-general Dean Livne, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. Likud subsequently questioned how Sohlberg could characterize the foreign interference allegations as serious while concluding, before the investigation was finished, that they had not affected the outcome. Abu Raesh’s lawyer, Ali Abu Laban, told Army Radio that his client was not a Ra’am activist. The lawyer said Abu Raesh encouraged voting to improve conditions in Arab society. He also challenged the initial extension of the doctor’s detention until Sunday, noting that police found neither money nor envelopes at his home.