The Israeli military has reportedly bugged all mobiles and phones imported into Gaza and actively monitors the mobile networks operating in the occupied territories to find “pressure points” used to blackmail Palestinians.

At any given time, hundreds of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops are listening in on phone conversations in the West Bank and Gaza, a former member of the IDF’s ‘Unit 8200’ signals intelligence corps told the Middle East Eye news outlet.

The unidentified corpsman claimed that all mobiles and phones imported into Gaza through the southern Kerem Shalom crossing are implanted with an Israeli bug. Similarly, anyone making use of the occupied areas’ only two operational mobile networks – Jawwal and Wataniya – is apparently under surveillance.

Besides monitoring politically active Palestinians and potential security threats, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service reportedly conducts an additional level of audio monitoring to identify adulterers and homosexuals who can be “pressured” to join its network of informants.

“This is an entire world in which the Shin Bet can acquire power over Palestinians that ultimately forces them to collaborate or reveal things about other people, and it is all part of the system of control,” he noted.

The IDF veteran said the “grunt work” behind this mass surveillance system is being carried out by soldiers who learned Arabic as part of their military service – and apparently are told by “the people around them” that “this is proper” and “there is no reason” to “think that what they are doing is not okay.”

These troops are reportedly monitored by Druze soldiers or soldiers of Syrian descent who are native Arabic speakers. The transcribed conversations are translated and sent to the IDF’s intelligence divisions and to the Shin Bet, stated the ex-soldier, who added that there were no limits to both Israel’s capabilities to invade Palestinian privacy and on what the soldiers can do with the “intimate conversations” they intercepted.

“People who are soldiers in the army would laugh when they heard sex talk. Soldiers save the conversations and send them to their friends. This is a very harsh invasion of the privacy of every Palestinian living there,” he declared.

Last week, reports emerged about the IDF using invasive facial recognition tech as part of a surveillance dragnet in the West Bank.

Netanyahu, now opposition leader in Parliament after he was ousted by a broad coalition of rivals in June, arrived at the Jerusalem court on Tuesday without the large security contingent and crowds of rival protesters that were on hand when he appeared as premier.

He entered the courtroom accompanied by a lawyer, his younger son, Avner, and a pair of supporters from his Likud party.

Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate indictments that collectively accuse him of accepting improper gifts and illegally trading regulatory favour with media moguls in exchange for positive coverage.

The testimony of his former spokesman Nir Hefetz was expected to shed light on Netanyahu’s dealings with the Bezeq telecommunications group.

Hefetz is a star prosecution witness in the case against the former prime minister.

He left a long career in journalism in 2009 to work as a spokesman for Netanyahu’s government, then in 2014 became the Netanyahu family’s spokesman and adviser.

In the Bezeq case, considered the most serious, Netanyahu is accused of offering regulatory benefits potentially worth millions to the company in return for politically advantageous coverage on the group’s Walla news site.

His lawyers asked that Tuesday’s session be delayed following reports that another witness had come forward with new evidence alleging that Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, had accepted an expensive bracelet as a gift from two billionaire friends, Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer.

Netanyahu’s lawyers argued that the former prime minister and his wife were caught off-guard by the allegations and had the right to study the evidence before Hefetz took the stand.

The prosecution announced it regretted the leaks about Hefetz’s expected testimony but urged the session to go ahead.

After a half-hour recess to consider the defence motion, judges postponed the trial until November 22.

Roughly 50 flag and placard waving Netanyahu supporters had gathered outside the courtroom to cheer the ex-premier ahead of his departure.

The former prime minister has denied any wrongdoing. As prime minister, Netanyahu long rejected calls to step down while under indictment, using his position to lash out at law enforcement, the media and the courts.

Netanyahu’s criminal trial began in 2020, while the country was embroiled in a protracted political crisis and dealing with the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Witnesses started taking the stand in April, and proceedings are expected to last several years.