Stop the Unlawful Security Guard Patrol in Beer Sheva

Illustrative. Photo: © Andrey Popov | Dreamstime.com

ACRI submitted an appeal to the Attorney General on June 16, 2026 demanding the revocation of the order authorizing the municipal security guard patrol in Be’er Sheva to operate in the city, and that it be clarified to the municipality that the patrol’s current activities are unlawful. 

Minutes from a meeting of the Be’er Sheva Municipality’s Executive Board indicate that the municipal patrol effectively operates as a citywide police force: security guards conduct car and foot chases, carry out searches, respond to dispatch calls, and engage in proactive patrols. This is in spite of the fact that under the law the authority and powers granted to security guards are very limited and may be exercised only in locations and circumstances explicitly prescribed by law. 

In the appeal, Attorneys Nitsan Ilani and Debbie Gild-Hayo argued that operating an armed municipal force without clear legal authorization and without adequate oversight undermines the rule of law, the rights to liberty, privacy, and equality, and the basic protections to which every person is entitled when interacting with law enforcement authorities. This security guard patrol effectively creates an alternative law enforcement track that bypasses the police, in which private or municipal security guards exercise powers they do not possess. This may lead to detentions, searches, and demands for identification without a legal basis; heightens concerns about discriminatory enforcement against individuals perceived as “suspicious” by the guards; privatizes core policing and law-enforcement functions and transfers them to bodies whose training, oversight, and relationship with the police are not properly regulated; and creates inequality between residents of municipalities that can afford additional “security” services and residents of other municipalities. 

ACRI has called on the Attorney General to act immediately to revoke the order authorizing the municipal patrol’s security guards in Be’er Sheva and to clarify to the municipality that the patrol is not authorized to operate as a policing force in the public sphere. ACRI also called for the issuance of a nationwide directive to all local authorities prohibiting the establishment and operation of independent security and policing units that act without legal authority. This directive is particularly necessary in the period leading up to elections and on election day. 

ACRI’s appeal, June 16, 2026 (Heb)