Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency has interrogated at least six Negev residents and subjected some to strip searches over suspicions they bribed voters with prepaid fuel cards, without presenting any evidence, Haaretz reported. Interrogators asked whether detainees encouraged Bedouin women to vote using fuel vouchers and threatened one person that “you will disappear behind the sun if you don’t cooperate.”
The interrogations took place even as Israeli fuel companies Paz and Delek found no unusual fuel consumption or prepaid card purchases ahead of the Oct 27 election, according to Haaretz, undercutting claims that 100-shekel fuel vouchers were distributed to buy votes for the Arab party Ra’am. Police had also detained three Bedouin Ra’am activists in the Negev on election day with envelopes of cash after a complaint from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s acting chief of staff, Ido Nordan, before moving to release them for lack of evidence.