- Man uploaded the picture of himself leaning against the bulldozer in West Bank
- In the caption on Facebook, he wrote an Arabic term meaning ‘good morning’
- A malfunction translated it to ‘attack them’ in Hebrew or ‘hurt them’ in English
- Police believed he was plotting an attack, so they swooped in and arrested him
Israeli police mistakenly arrested a Palestinian who posted ‘good morning’ in Arabic online which Facebook wrongly translated as ‘attack them’.
The man uploaded a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer at the Israeli settlement of Beitar Ilit, where he works, in the occupied West Bank.
In the caption, he wrote an Arabic term meaning ‘good morning’, but a software malfunction translated it to mean ‘attack them’ in Hebrew and ‘hurt them’ in English.
The man uploaded a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer at the Israeli settlement of Beitar Ilit, where he works, in the occupied West Bank
In the caption, he wrote an Arabic term meaning ‘good morning’, but a software malfunction translated it to mean ‘attack them’ in Hebrew and ‘hurt them’ in English
Police only confirmed that a Palestinian had been mistakenly arrested then released following suspicions of incitement, but a report in Haaretz newspaper provided further details.
Officers believed the man was going to carry out an attack, so swooped in to arrest him.
It was unclear how such a translation error could have been made as there are no apparent similarities between the Arabic expression used for ‘good morning’ and the phrases in Hebrew or English.
Police were notified and the man was arrested last week, the report said.
He was released after a few hours when police realised the mistake.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said: ‘A few days ago, a Palestinian was detained for questioning on suspicion of incitement through his Facebook page.’
She said he was ‘immediately released’ after the suspicions turned out to be false and the Facebook post has since been deleted.