Shomrim’s Year: A look back at the biggest stories of 2020

Cloaked in Trauma, from the Gaza-border to the Yom Kippur War; COVID-19 and the government’s failure to protect Israelis’ society; the massive leak that shook the world’s financial system. One thing on which we can all agree: 2020 was an unforgettable year

Democracy in the Time of Corona: Image of the Year

Shomrim is proud to present two awards in the framework of “Local Testimony,” the annual photojournalism exhibition, with Oded Balilty winning Shomrim’s Democracy award for his image. Sharina Rosner and Itay Raziel taking home Shomrim’s Award in the field of video.

Who will keep tabs on the censorship of Israel’s internet?

The state attorney’s Cyber Unit “asks” internet companies to remove allegedly problematic content – requests that are overwhelmingly granted. But there’s no documentation and no supervision. No one knows what’s being censored and why | Viki Auslender

The FinCEN Files | Uri Blau - In collaboration with ICIJ

Israel Aerospace Industries paid $155-million to two companies linked to money laundering

Controversial East Jerusalem group gets $100 million from companies linked to Roman Abramovich

Leaked docs: Arab Bank was involved in potential terrorist financing until 2016

Bank report: Suspicious money transfers between Lev Leviev and his former partners

The Israeli Innocence Project | Roni Singer

How Many Innocent People are Doing Time?

About five percent of prison inmates in Israel are innocent but the system avoids examining its own mistakes.

Why do the time if you didn’t do the crime?

Israel’s justice system thrives on admissions of guilt and often uses subterfuge to get suspects to confess.

Cloaked in trauma special project| Renen Netzer

PTSD and the kids of the Gaza border area

How 20 years of terror and neglect have left the emotional resilience of children and parents at breaking point.

You, me and the never-ending war

From the Yom Kippur war to Gaza and Lebanon wars, Post-traumatic stress can spread through the families of victims.

Shomrim Investigates

Three months with the troll hunters detoxifying social media

Social networks have been at the mercy of a global industry of lies for years, with fake profiles serving as so-called super-spreaders for special-interest groups and authoritarian regimes. An Israeli activist collective is trying to clean things up | Zeela Kotler Hadari

We Know Where You Drove Last Summer

An unregulated, unsupervised and officially nonexistent surveillance system – which police claim is a vital crime-solving tool – is worrying civil rights observers and data-protection advocates in Israel | Roni Singer

Will coronavirus sink Israel’s 10-billion-shekel loan pyramid?

A special Shomrim and Calcalist report: Unsupervised free-loan funds have been operating for decades among Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. Under threat from the coronavirus pandemic, the entire pyramid could come crashing down | Amir Kurz

>>> See all Shomrim Investigates

Paint it Black: a New Generation of Proud Women and Men

A special project brings you the sounds and voices from the Black protest movement that has already started to bubble over into the Israeli art and culture scenes. Ten monologues.

Shomrim Democracy

Cops in crisis: How politics is subverting the Israel Police

Ministerial interference, foot-dragging over the appointment of a permanent police chief, loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the public: These are some of the problems which have led senior officers to warn that the force is facing the severest crisis in its history | Roni Singer

The political turmoil: Even the laws have become temporary

Of the 74 laws enacted by the Knesset in the eight months since it was sworn in, no fewer than 50 are temporary provisions. How does it work and why should it trouble us? | Zeela Kotler Hadari

Democracy dies in the classroom

Once a cornerstone of the Israeli education system, education for democracy is being erased from state-run schools and has been replaced by a fresh emphasis on Jewish heritage | Renen Netzer

>>> See all Shomrim Democracy

Shomrim Society

COVID-19 adds a new dimension to end-of-life dilemmas

End-of-life decisions have never been easy, but the pandemic has changed everything in terms of patients’ ability to decide about their final moments. Isolated from their families, many are forced to make decisions on issues they had never contemplated | Renen Netzer

The plight of of Israel's Arab students

Thousands of Israeli Arab students choose to study in the Palestinian Authority - despite the sky-high tuition fees, cultural tensions and even racism toward students from inside Israel | Shahar Smooha and Baker Zoabi

Hidden data highlights growing inequality

The Education Ministry hoped its differential budget policy would narrow the gaps in education investment in Israel. But a special Shomrim-Calcalist project reveals how local authorities are actually making the problem worse | Shahar Ilan

>>> See all Shomrim Society

In pictures: Inside Israel’s coronavirus battlegrounds

In a special project for Shomrim, photographer Bea Bar Kallos went into the COVID-19 units at various hospital and documented, from the inside, the fight against the pandemic that changed the world.

Endangered nature: How construction spells destruction for Israel’s green resources

Photographer Jonathan Bloom went out into the field to document just some of the eyesores that remind us that profits for the few means losses for the rest of us. Special Project

About Us

The Center for Media and Democracy in Israel, Shomrim (the Guardians) is a nonprofit and non-partisan independent news organization. We empower the public and promote democratic discourse in Israel through investigative journalism and groundbreaking storytelling that sparks action.