Digital Rights Weekly Update: 1 - 7 May 2026

Policy Insight:

This week, 7amleh’s new report shed light on Palestinians’ access to the digital economy and how it has become a defining rights issue for Palestinians. The new report provides critical mapping and testing work that moves beyond abstract discussions to document, in practical terms, the structural barriers Palestinians face across payment systems, e-commerce, and remote work platforms. At a time when Palestinian digital transformation is both urgent and necessary, this research is essential for identifying gaps, informing policy responses, supporting the growing digital economic ecosystem, and ensuring immediate interventions where exclusion persists.

At the same time, the unionisation efforts by Google DeepMind staff represent an important and encouraging moment for accountability in the tech sector. Workers demanding safeguards against the use of their labour and technologies in warfare, surveillance, and human rights violations should be seen as a powerful reminder that accountability can also come from within. We salute this courage and the growing refusal to allow technology to be weaponised against people and fundamental rights.

News Digest

New 7amleh Report: Palestinian Exclusion from the Digital Economy is Structural and Systematic

7amleh

May 5, 2026, 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media released a new report titled “Palestinian Access to Digital Economy Platforms: Barriers, Disparities, and Policy Responses.” The report highlights the systematic exclusion Palestinians face in accessing global digital platforms, including payment services, e-commerce, and remote work platforms. The report is based on an analytical methodology that examined around 30 major digital services across payment, e-commerce, and online work categories in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. For each platform, the researcher attempted to create and verify an account and access core functions using locally available internet connections, devices, and payment instruments, while documenting geographic restrictions, terms of service, and user experience barriers. The report finds that Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and inside Israel face structural barriers that restrict their participation in the digital economy. These barriers are shaped by the intersection of global tech company policies and Israeli control over ICT infrastructure, limiting access to essential economic tools.

Google DeepMind staff unionise over Israel and US military ties

Middle East Eye

Hundreds of workers in Google’s UK artificial intelligence division have voted to unionise over concerns that its technology is being used by the US to wage war on Iran and by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. On Tuesday, the UK-based employees formally requested Google DeepMind to recognise the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union as their representatives in the workplace, in what organisers said could become the first unionisation effort at a major “frontier AI” lab globally. In an internal vote among CWU members at DeepMind, 98 percent voted in favour of unionising. The workers at DeepMind are seeking an end to the use of Google AI by Israel and the US military. Their demands also include restoring a scrapped commitment not to develop AI weapons or surveillance tools, creating an independent ethics oversight body, and the right of individuals to refuse to contribute to projects on moral grounds. The workers are part of a wider campaign, with DeepMind staff globally considering in-person protests and “research strikes” where they abstain from work.

Israel PM Netanyahu posts AI video of political rivals transforming into Palestinians

The New Arab

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted an AI-generated video to social media on Wednesday of political rivals Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett transforming into Palestinian Knesset members, in an attack on the coalition formed to unseat him. The video shows former prime ministers Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid sharing an embrace, after which they appear to peel off masks to reveal their 'true' identities. After taking off the 'masks' the two opposition figures reveal themselves to be Palestinian Knesset members Ahmed Tibi and Mansour Abbas. "Taking off the masks," Netanyahu wrote in a Hebrew-language caption accompanying the post. The post came shortly after Lapid and Bennett announced the formation of a coalition to unseat Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for nearly two decades. The post by Netanyahu was slammed as "racist" by social media users, who highlighted the prime minister's previous use of Israel's Palestinian citizens as part of scare tactics during elections.

Ghost Operators: How Israeli Telecoms Were Exploited to Track Citizens Worldwide

Haaretz

Israeli telecom infrastructure was used to track citizens in more than ten countries over the past three years, according to a report published recently by the digital research group Citizen Lab. The findings, reviewed by Haaretz in recent weeks, expose how efforts to upgrade phone network infrastructures built in the 1970s for the smartphone era still leave even the most advanced devices exposed to surveillance. The report describes two separate tracking operations, each likely run by a commercial firm selling surveillance technologies to governments around the world. One was also found to have exploited Israeli geolocation technology to track targets, using networks belonging to 019Mobile and Partner Communications, although both Israeli companies denied any involvement. A second, more sophisticated operation is linked to a Swiss firm at the center of a 2023 Haaretz investigation for supplying Israeli surveillance companies, including Rayzone, which develops and sells cyber intelligence technologies to government agencies around the world.