Under Israeli surveillance: Living in dystopia, in Palestine

It has been more than five months since the United States sanctioned the Israeli spyware company NSO Group, and stories about the use and abuse of its Pegasus product continue to break. As various organisations try to push for further measures against Israel for supplying human rights abusers with this tool to further their violations, it is important to remember that Israeli military and surveillance technology is first developed for and tested on Palestinians, before being exported. Unsurprisingly, Pegasus has already been found on the phones of six Palestinian human rights activists, one of whom is now suing NSO in France. Another target happened to be my friend and colleague whose field of work is directly connected to the relationship between Palestine and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The thought that the Israelis have had full access to our personal conversations and exchanges in group chats has been quite disturbing, to say the least. However, this is not the first time Israel has violated my privacy and it won't be the last.