Case No. Criminal Case 11191-11-23 | Haifa Magistrates’ Court |  Convicted on 29 April 2026 (two counts)

The Protest & Arrests

On 19 October 2023,  twelve days into Israel’s war on Gaza, and two days after the bombing in the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza that killed nearly 500 people, between 70 and 100 residents of Umm al-Fahem, an Arab town in the center of Israel, gathered for a peaceful anti-war demonstration. By that point, Palestinian health officials had reported approximately 3,785 deaths in Gaza overall, including roughly 1,000 women and 1,500 children. At the start of the protest, Ahmad Khalifa, a human rights lawyer, addressed the crowd and asked participants to keep to traditional, accepted chants. The demonstration proceeded without incident.

At the moment Khalifa began thanking demonstrators for joining the march, however, large numbers of police officers moved in, reportedly using stun grenades to disperse the crowd, and arrested eleven demonstrators, including four minors. Nine were released without charges while two were held: Ahmad Khalifa and Mohammad Taher Jabareen, both of whom were among the protesters who led chants through a megaphone.

On 6 November 2023, the state filed an indictment charging both men under Article 24 of Israel’s 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law with: identification with a terrorist organization (which carries a sentence of up to 3 years’ imprisonment), making a direct call to commit a terrorist act (up to 5 years), and incitement to terrorism through publication of content that may lead to the commission of a terrorist act (up to 5 years). All charges were based solely on the content of traditional Palestinian protest chants, for which no prior indictments had been filed.

The Defendants

Ahmad Khalifa, 42, is a human rights lawyer and an elected member of Umm al-Fahem’s city council. He was held in detention for four months without bond before the Israeli Supreme Court ordered his release to strict house arrest on 9 February 2024. He was banned from the internet and from residing in his hometown of Umm al-Fahem, and subjected to electronic monitoring. 

Mohammad Taher Jabareen, 31 years old at the time of his arrest, is a youth activist from Umm al-Fahem. He was held in pre-trial detention for eight months without bond before being placed under house arrest with restrictive conditions for many more months. 

Both are prominent members of the Hirak al-Fahmawi movement, a grassroots activist network in Umm al-Fahem that has campaigned against crime, land confiscation, and other human rights violations against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Adalah’s General Director Dr. Hassan Jabareen and Adalah Attorneys Hadeel Abu Salih and Myssana Morany are representing Mohammad Taher Jabareen and co-representing Ahmad Khalifa, with Attorney Afnan Khalifa, on behalf of the Human Rights Defenders Fund.

The Indictment

The chants at the center of this case are traditional Arabic protest slogans that have been used in Palestinian demonstrations in Israel, at protests against the Prawer Plan, against home demolitions in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, against Israeli military operations in Gaza and Jenin, for decades. Police witnesses who testified in court confirmed:

• There were no flags of any organization at the protest

• No slogans were chanted that mentioned or supported any named armed group

• No participant rioted, blocked a road, or attacked anyone

Not one chant referenced in the indictment names any terrorist organization, calls for any violent act, or fits the statutory definition of an “act of terrorism” under the 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law. The law requires a serious threat to physical safety, property, public infrastructure, or public health. The indictment’s factual section covers two pages and never identifies which organization the defendants are alleged to have “identified with.” During the trial proceedings, the prosecution’s own attorney acknowledged this directly:

“In the end, the state views all the chants as one body - this is what constitutes the offenses in the indictment. As my colleagues said [...] it is possible that each chant alone would not constitute the offense. As one body, they do establish the offense.” State Prosecutor, hearing of 8 April 2024

The defense’s response: There is no criminal offense in Israeli law that stipulates that non-inciting statements become criminal through accumulation. The alleged offense must be based on a specific publication, and if no individual publication amounts to incitement, then no criminal offense is established.

The Chants & Charges

The prosecution’s entire case rests on traditional Arabic language protest chants. Below is a list setting out how the prosecution presented some of the chants it considers to be most egregious, and how the defense, supported by expert linguistic analysis, explains what they actually mean. The defense team presented an expert opinion by Prof. Jonathan Mendel, a leading Israeli academic expert in Arabic linguistics and culture who has been accepted as a credible expert by Israeli courts in previous cases.

Prolonged Pre-Trial Detention Under Harsh Conditions

Together with the indictment, the state requested that both men be detained until the conclusion of proceedings, part of a “zero tolerance” policy applied by the State Attorney’s Office since October 7 to all “incitement to terrorism” charges. According to an official from the State Attorney’s Office, as of May 2024, approximately 80% of the post-October 7 indictments for speech offenses under the Counter-Terrorism Law, filed almost exclusively against Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, resulted in detention until the end of proceedings. Despite defense arguments that speech offenses do not justify continued detention, the Haifa Magistrates’ Court agreed to detain both men. Khalifa was eventually released to house arrest after four months, following a Supreme Court ruling on 9 February 2024 that overturned two lower court decisions, but he remained banned from the internet, was electronically monitored, and barred from his hometown of Umm al-Fahem for months thereafter. Jabareen spent over eight months in an Israeli prison before the Haifa District Court ordered his release to house arrest under stringent conditions in June 2024. During their detention, both men were subjected to horrific conditions of confinement and abuse, part of a broader pattern of systemic ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons that has escalated significantly since October 2023.

Mohammad Jabareen’s testimony, given at a court hearing on 16 April 2024:

“No detainee, myself included, went to sleep satisfied [not hungry] [...] Every day, there are new rules from the prison administration, like being forced to sit on our knees with our hands behind our backs [...] The food is full of hair. We don’t have laundry facilities to wash our clothes. We have diseases, like scabies.”

Ahmad Khalifa’s testimony, given at a hearing of the Haifa Magistrates’ Court on 28 December 2023, describes witnessing a fellow inmate die after his complaints of severe stomach pain were ignored for two days:

“He was shouting from Thursday to Saturday that his stomach was hurting, and they would tell him to be quiet [...] On Saturday, he continued crying out that his stomach and intestines were hurting. I can still hear his voice. Then they took him [...] the guards put him in a separate cell and he died that night.”

Khalifa reported that during a court hearing held via video conferencing, guards repeatedly threatened him with reprisals if he testified about his conditions of detention, threats made while he was appearing before a judge via video.

Four Independent Grounds for Acquittal

The defense team’s closing arguments, submitted on 22 February 2026, presented four distinct legal bases for full acquittal on all charges.

1. The Law is Unconstitutional

The offenses charged under Sections 24(a)(1) and 24(b)(2) of the Counter-Terrorism Law employ terms so broad and vague—“words of praise, sympathy or encouragement” for a terror act or organization—that they fail the constitutional standard of legal certainty in criminal law. The Israeli Supreme Court has established that criminal norms must be precise, clear, and unambiguous. As Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, an Israeli constitutional law scholar, has previously noted, these provisions could criminalize legitimate political discourse, historical analysis, and academic speech, all of which lie at the core of protected expression. See more in Adalah’s Position Paper: Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law 

2. The Indictment Violates the Right to a Fair Trial

The indictment is structurally defective in several ways that together constituted a fundamental violation of the defendants’ right to defend themselves:

• It charges “identification with a terrorist organization” but never names the organization.

• No defendant was asked a single question in cross-examination connecting any chant to any specific illegal organization.

• The indictment included inaccurate and in some cases criminalizing translations of the Arabic chants, which framed the defendants’ speech in misleading terms from the outset.

These defects are not technical - they go to the heart of the right to fair and effective defense, as recognized in Israeli Supreme Court precedent.

3. The Factual Elements of the Offenses Were Not Proven

The prosecution failed to establish any of the required elements:

No “terror act” in any chant. The Counter-Terrorism Law defines a “terror act” as an offense or threat involving serious bodily harm, serious property damage, harm to religious sites, or sabotage of infrastructure. Not one word in any chant in the indictment refers to, calls for, or glorifies any such act.

No inciting publication. Case law requires that an inciting publication be explicit, clear, and unambiguous, and not amenable to multiple interpretations. Every police witness who testified agreed that the chants were open to more than one reading. 

No “real possibility” of harm. The offense under §24(b)(2) of the Counter-Terrorism Law requires proof that a publication creates a real, concrete possibility of a terror act, not a theoretical or hypothetical one. The prosecution argued that “someone from the West Bank might theoretically be incited”, an argument that fails to meet this standard. The demonstration proceeded without any incident, and no violence occurred or was threatened at any point.

4. Selective Enforcement 

Ethnic-based enforcement:
The offenses are enforced in a discriminatory and selective manner against Palestinians (citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem). Data from the Knesset Research and Information Center shows that between 2018 and 2022, 97% of investigations under Section 24 targeted Arabs, 95% of indictments were filed against Arabs, and 100% of convictions involved Arabs. FOI data obtained by Adalah further shows that since 7 October 2023, 100% of cases in the Northern District and 95% in other districts have targeted Arabs.

Singling out the defendants:
The indictment admits that 200 to 300 people attended and that most chanted the same slogans. The police did not attempt to identify or investigate any other demonstrators, despite clear footage and identifiable individuals. Defense witnesses further testified that identical chants were used at other protests without any arrests.

The Verdict

On 29 April 2026, the Haifa Magistrate’s Court convicted Mohammad Taher Jabareen and Attorney Ahmad Khalifa on charges of “indirect incitement to terrorism” and “identification with a terrorist organization.” The court acquitted them of the charge of “direct incitement to terrorism.”

This decision is part of a continuum of state persecution against Palestinian citizens of Israel since 7 October. The police have aggressively targeted expression by Palestinian citizens of Israel, particularly on social media. According to official state data, more than 200 indictments have been filed since October 2023 for speech-related offenses under the Counter-Terrorism Law, almost exclusively against Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.

It is an unprecedented prosecution of protected speech: It criminalizes their legitimate political protest activity, narrows the space for their freedom of expression, and creates a deterrent. This case - charging community leaders harshly and wrongfully under the Counter-Terrorism Law - is clearly intended to send an intimidating warning to the Palestinian public in Israel. Adalah will continue to fight against this blatant injustice using all available legal means.

See Adalah Press Release, 30 April 2026