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Israeli police are investigating allegations that an Arab Knesset member smuggled mobile phones to Palestinian security prisoners.

Basel Ghattas MK, a member of the Balad faction of the Joint Arab List, the third largest bloc in the Knesset, was asked to accompany police after he exited Ketziot Prison in southern Israel yesterday, but Ghattas refused citing parliamentary immunity.

Channel Two said that police believe Ghattas smuggled at least 12 mobile phones to two Palestinian security prisoners. The report suggests that both are members of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction and that one is serving a 37-year prison term for murder.

Ghattas said yesterday evening that the accusations are “political persecution” and that “Balad is being deliberately targeted”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that if the accusations against Ghattas are true, “then this constitutes a serious offence against the security of the state and citizens of Israel. Whoever harms state security will be severely punished and will not be allowed to serve in the Knesset”.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the case was “more proof that the Joint Arab List is a list of spies and traitors”. The Joint Arab List has 13 Knesset members.

Ghattas previously joined a Swedish flotilla aimed at breaching Israel’s naval restrictions around the Gaza Strip coast. He was also condemned by many Israeli leaders following the death of former President Shimon Peres, who he described as “a tyrant” who was “completely covered with our blood”.

The Balad faction was founded by Azmi Bishara, who became a Knesset member, but fled Israel in 2007 following allegations that he helped Hezbollah direct fire at Israel during the Second Lebanon war a year earlier.

Earlier this year, Balad’s three MKs, including Ghattas and Haneen Zoabi, who has been accused of inflammatory rhetoric and actions, were suspended from Knesset activity for a period of time. They were sanctioned after visiting the families of Palestinian terrorists, killed whilst launching attacks on Israelis, and observing a minute of silence in their memory.