The Israel Police on Friday evening concluded the identification process of a mobile phone found earlier in the morning off the coast of Herzliya, determining that the device indeed belonged to outgoing Military Advocate General, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who was released to house arrest on Friday.
Investigators are now extracting data from the phone as part of the ongoing investigation.
A police source quoted by Channel 12 News said authorities are examining the phone’s contents, checking whether any data was deleted before it was thrown into the sea and what technical actions were performed on it.
“During her arrest, the Military Advocate General did indeed provide us with the phone’s passcode,” the source added, noting that it will take several days to reach final conclusions.
On Friday morning, swimmer Noa Itiel discovered the phone on the seabed off Herzliya. She said that after reaching the shore, “I pressed the right button and - boom- an image popped up on the screen of someone I recognized from the media as the Military Advocate General.” Itiel handed the phone over to police, who began verifying whether it belonged to Tomer-Yerushalmi.
Following the discovery, the police cyber division initiated various procedures. Using available data such as the serial number, they aimed to determine when the phone was purchased and under whose name, and then examine which cellular antennas it connected to and at what times, as well as when it was powered on and off. A police source quoted by Ynet described the circumstances of the discovery as “strange.”
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)