A “cancerous phenomenon” How do Israeli officers eavesdrop on their female colleagues in the army?

An investigation has revealed moral scandals in the Israeli army that join a series of scandals that have emerged recently, represented by Israeli officers and soldiers stalking their female soldiers in sensitive positions, in light of Israeli warnings of an increase in sexual harassment rates in the army.

An investigation prepared by an Israeli newspaper revealed the widespread phenomenon of soldiers and officers eavesdropping on female soldiers while they were in sensitive positions, and taking explicit pictures of them.

One of the Israeli judges described the phenomenon of officers and soldiers stalking their female soldiers as cancerous.

And the year 2020 alone, according to the investigation, witnessed an investigation within the army in at least 92 files in which officers and soldiers are accused of publishing banned videos and photos.

The published pictures and videos sometimes cause a great shock to some female soldiers who were exposed to explicit pictures without their knowledge and consent.

The journalistic investigation shows that taking such pictures is done by monitoring the female soldiers when they enter the common bathrooms inside the military bases, inside the toilets, and in the female soldiers' wings.

Sometimes pictures are taken during the work in progress, as “photographers” spare no effort in searching for ways to achieve their goals using special techniques and applications. The investigation indicated that some of the accused had built explicit photo albums for female soldiers that include thousands of photos.

The investigation told many stories of female soldiers who were victims of eavesdropping, including the story of a female soldier named “Yael”, who said that a duty officer inside a military base of the 252nd Reserve Unit in the Negev called “Rom Abu Rajeel” approached her while she was resting, and she was superficially acquainted with him, and asked her immediately after Greeting: “Are you going to take a shower?” Without waiting for her answer, he asked her to pick up his mobile phone to keep it until he finishes his work, instructing her in which position to put it on the bathroom window in order to preserve the plastic frame that protects the device, and he explained to her how to do that.

The young soldier realized, according to the investigation, that something reprehensible was happening, and told him that she was not going to shower, but Abu Rjeel did not stop and said: “Take my mobile phone to your room and put it on your locker, and later I will take it back from you.”

But Yael refused, as the officer’s request raised her concern, so she told the next day what happened to the officer responsible for her, and it soon became clear that Yael was not alone. Abu Rajeel made such a request to several female soldiers for months, and some of them responded to him.

Al-Qaeda leadership tried to investigate the matter, and soon a wide phenomenon was revealed, and officer Abu Rajil was seized with no less than a thousand photos and video tapes, thirty of them documenting very “intimate scenes” of female soldiers, which he had started accumulating three years ago.

The investigation recounts many stories about such pathological violations. Commenting on the phenomenon, the military spokesman said: “We are working to uproot this phenomenon with perseverance and rigor.”