Freed Bedouin doctor alleges political motive in Ra’am vote-buying investigation

A Bedouin doctor arrested on election day in connection with an alleged vote-buying operation benefiting Ra’am has accused police of political persecution after a court ordered his unconditional release. Speaking to Haaretz on Monday, a day after his release, Saef Abu Raesh said investigators had shown him no evidence supporting the allegations.

Abu Raesh, who runs a small clinic in the southern Bedouin town of Rahat, had organized an effort to encourage residents to vote. He said investigators asked which party he urged people to support and whether he understood that his activities could influence who would lead the country. During a transfer between police stations, he alleged, an officer asked why Arabs were unhappy with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, saying the minister had done “only good” for them and provided law and order.

The doctor said that exchange convinced him the investigation was politically motivated. He accused authorities of 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 and a roughly twofold rise in annual homicides across Arab society.

Describing the dawn arrest, Abu Raesh said police woke him by knocking at his door while his pregnant wife and young daughters slept. He said being taken to a police station in handcuffs was deeply humiliating. He also said he never cast a ballot, despite being told officers would take him to vote. According to his account, an officer at the Dimona station questioned why he was raising the matter only then.

Abu Raesh was among three people detained on election day. Of the other two, one was released to house arrest and one remained in custody. Four more people were subsequently arrested. Three of those were later placed under house arrest, while the fourth had restrictions removed following an appeal by his lawyer.

The investigation has become part of a broader dispute over an election in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority. Netanyahu has used the Ra’am allegations and a separate investigation into suspected foreign interference, reportedly involving Qatar, to challenge the results. Officials have maintained that the results are valid and that both investigations are limited in scope.

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.

Netanyahu had described the three election-day suspects as senior Ra’am financial operatives and accused them of trying to steal the election. Abu Raesh’s lawyer, Ali Abu Laban, told Army Radio that his client was not a Ra’am activist and had instead encouraged voting to improve conditions in Arab society. The lawyer also challenged the initial extension of the doctor’s detention until Sunday, saying police found neither money nor envelopes at his home.