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Israel’s subjection of the Palestinian people to a pervasive and repressive multi-layered system of surveillance and control is widely documented.^[1] As previous studies conducted by Who Profits have shown, this is facilitated by both Israeli and international companies which deliver services and equipment to Israel’s security apparatus, ^[2] including the Israeli Prison Services (IPS),^[3] and the Israeli Police, or by providing private security services to settlers and settlements.^[4]

The present company feature highlights the role of one such company; Top Sky Line Engineering Systems (hereinafter: Top Sky Line/ the company). Top Sky Line is a private Israeli company operating in the field of electronic homeland security, surveillance, intrusion detection, access control, private wireless networks, and communication, with revenues of US$ 31.79 million in 2020.

Top Sky Line is a supplier of security services to the IPS. As of December 2021, 4,650 Palestinian political prisoners, including 34 female prisoners and 160 children are incarcerated in Israeli prisons,^[5] and 482 administrative detainees who are being held without trial.^[6]

Moreover, the company delivers security services to settlers in occupied Jerusalem through contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing (MOCH), and to settlements in the occupied West Bank. In addition, the company has a large portfolio of contracts with the Israeli Police.^[7]

Top Sky Line operations are not limited to Israel’s system of oppression and dispossession but are also international. The company operates in the USA, Latin America, Barbados, and across Europe.^[8] The company website boasts about its capacity to answer various needs depending on the project’s “unique demands and requirements,” noting the implementation of its CCTV solutions across various infrastructure and security facilities globally.^[9]

Prior to publication, Who Profits contacted Top Sky Line to share the information presented here and invited the company to respond and comment on the presented evidence of complicity. No response was received.

Services to the Israel Prison Service (IPS):

Between 2018 and 2019, the company was awarded eight contracts with Nitzan-Ramleh prison and detention center for a total of NIS 262,869.75.^[10] One of the 2018 contracts, which amounted to NIS 59,529, was dedicated to providing services to the hunger strike wing at Nitzan-Ramleh prison and detention center.^[11] Nitzan-Ramleh can hold up to 740 prisoners and is one of 21 Israeli prisons and detention centers where Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated.^[12]

Officially opened in 2019, the hunger strike wing is designed to detain prisoners who launch hunger strikes within the prison’s facilities, rather than transferring them to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment, thereby further isolating them and denying them adequate medical care.^[13] Since 1968,^[14] Palestinian political prisoners have been engaging in hunger strikes as an act of resistance to protest their incarceration and repressive conditions.^[15] To break their strike and spirit, Israel subjects Palestinian hunger strikers to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment such as restraining them to their beds, denying them of family visits, isolation, confiscation of personal property, the imposition of fines, and other brutal practices.^[16]

In recent years, hunger strikes have been a prime method used by prisoners under administrative detention to protest their incarceration. Administrative detention is a procedure used by Israel to indefinitely hold prisoners without charge or trial, based primarily on covert evidence concealed from the prisoners and their lawyers. Administrative detainees can spend years in prison without being charged or indicted.^[17]

In addition, the company was awarded numerous IPS contracts for the delivery of services and equipment to prisons where Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated.^[18] Between 2017 and 2019 Top Sky Line was awarded nine IPS contracts for the delivery of services to Ktziot prison, or what Palestinians refer to as the Naqab prison. The contracts totaled NIS 604,506.84, and included the delivery of services and equipment to the prison's tent wing.^[19] Rather than incarcerating political prisoners in built facilities, in the Naqab prison, hundreds of prisoners are held in tents. They are left out in the open, under the burning heat of the summer sun, the winter rain, and the freezing desert cold.^[20]

In 2019, the company was also awarded seven IPS contracts for the delivery of services to Majido prison worth NIS 334,163.7. Furthermore, the company was awarded two joint Ktziot and Majido contracts - one in 2018 worth NIS 133,596.45 and another in 2019 worth NIS 11,161.80. Moreover, the company was awarded a 2019 contract for the delivery of services and equipment to Majido and another two IPS facilities worth 85,009.86 NIS.

The company also provided security systems for the Nachshon Unit, the IPS’s operational arm in 2019,^[21] for a total of NIS 55,039.99.^[22] Nachshon is the central unit for surveilling prisoners and conducting security operations, including prison cell searches, and also operating holding cells in courthouses.^[23] Furthermore, the company provided security services to the Salem Military Court and to Sha’arei Avraham^[24], the IPS national training center.^[25]

Moreover, in 2016, the company won a ten-year contract with the IPS for NIS 22 million per year, totaling NIS 220 million by 2025 when the contract ends, for the installation of security systems.^[26]

In 2015, the company won an IPS tender for the supply, maintenance and installation of security systems, alongside the Israeli private company Magalcom.^[27]

Surveillance and security services for settlements:

In January 2020, Top Sky Line won a tender with the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing (MOHC) for the provision and maintenance of electronic, technological and physical security systems in 98 sites in occupied East Jerusalem, as part of the establishment of a technological security system in the area.^[28]

The six-year contract includes construction, installation, operation of all specified services, and an additional 62 months for maintenance, which can be extended for an additional period of three years. According to the tender documents, the Israeli MOCH seeks to reduce the cost of security in East Jerusalem by replacing manpower with an electronic command and control apparatus.^[29]

According to the tender documents, the sites are located in Palestinian areas in which a number of Israeli settlers reside in gated housing that can only be accessed by vehicle or through pedestrian access gates.^[30] This project divides East Jerusalem into three distinct zones: the Shuafat Ridge; the City of David settler complex (located in the Palestinian village of Silwan), and the Old City.

Through the tender the company will install the following systems: CCTV; intrusion detection; access control; intercoms; public address (PA) systems; License Plate Recognition (LPR); electronic fences; physical fences; IPVPN, and access gates. A local command and control system are planned for installation at each individual site. Information from all sites will then be broadcast to nine regional command and control centers. These regional centers will be connected to three area centers, which will broadcast to two central centers. The entire apparatus will be accessible to officials in the IMOHC offices located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem. The system will also integrate previously installed CCTV systems that include 620 deployed cameras managed through video management software (VMS).^[31]

Under government Resolution No. 1073 passed in 2007, the Israeli MOCH is in charge of providing security services to settlements in occupied East Jerusalem,^[32] although it had been contracting private companies for this purpose since the 1990s.^[33]

Furthermore, in 2015, the company won a tender to supply, install and provide services for technological and physical security systems for the settlement of Modi’in Illit,^[34] one of the largest settlements in the occupied West Bank.^[35]

Services to the Israeli Police:

In April 2021, the company was awarded a NIS 5 million contract for the installation and maintenance of security systems for the Israeli Police.^[36]

In the same year, the company secured a NIS 3 million contract by the Israeli Police for the provision of security services, including communication devices and accessories, components for information and transmission technologies, multimedia communication equipment, and DataVoice.^[37]

In May 2020, the Israeli Police again contracted the company to provide security services for a total of NIS 2.5 million.^[38]

Additionally, in 2016 the company was awarded a four-year contract with the Israeli Police for NIS 20 million for the installation of security systems that includes the installation of cameras in police stations and other police facilities.^[39] During that same year, the company won a tender to provide the Israeli Police with fire extinguishing systems.^[40]

Corporate information:^[41]

Ownership

The company is owned and managed by Yaakov Winter (50%), and Avraham Farzon (50%)

Partners

The Ministry of Construction and Housing, Israeli Police, Israel Prison Service, Israel Ministry of Interior (IMOI), Dan Hotels, Motorola Solutions Israel, Solaer Energix Engineering Limited Partnership, and Israel’s Prime Minister's Office.

Revenues

US$31.79M in 2020

Subsidiaries

The owners and managers of Top Sky Line Engineering Systems, Yaakov Winter, and Avraham Farzon each hold 30% of Top Sky Line Assets.

General info

Head office: Hatidhar 17, Beit Hatamar, Raanana, Israel

Tel.: +972-9-7452211

Website: www.topskyline.com

[1] See for example: Amnesty International. Operating from the Shadows: Inside NSO Group’s Corporate Structure. 31 May 2021 p. 17-24 and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Annual Violation Report 2019. 2020.

[2] Who Profits Research Center. “Big Brother” in Jerusalem’s Old City Israel’s Militarized Visual Surveillance System in Occupied East Jerusalem. November 2018.

[3] Who Profits Research Center. Corporations That Provide Services to Israeli Prisons. January 2014.

[4] Who Profits Research Center. Private Security Companies and the Israeli Occupation. January 2016.

[5] Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Prisoners Statistics.(Last accessed 5 December 2021).

[6] Center For the Defense of The Individual. 4,406 "security" prisoners are being held in Israeli prisons.(Last accessed  21 November 2021).

[7] Tenders on file with Who Profits Research Center.

[8] Top Sky Line website, About us (last accessed 15 December 2021), YouTube, The Safe City Company - Top Sky Line Engineering (last accessed 15 December 2021).

[9] Top Sky Line Engineering System. CCTV . (last accessed on 21 November 2021).

[10] According to the response to an FOI submitted by Who Profits Research Center to the IPS.

[11] According to the response to an FOI submitted by Who Profits Research Center to the IPS.

[12] Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Prisons and Detention Centers. (Last accessed 13 December 2021).

[13] Kikar Hashabat. IPS presents: This is the hunger strikers wing • Watch. 23 September 2019 (Hebrew).

[14] Wafa. The most famous hunger strikes. (Arabic, last accessed 5 December 2021).

[15] Physicians for Human Rights. Hunger Strikes, Force Feeding and Imprisonment. 31 July 2013 (last accessed on 21 November 2021).

[16] Ibid.

[17] Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Administrative Detainees. December 2018 (last accessed 15 December 2021).

[18] According to the response to an FOI submitted by Who Profits Research Center to the IPS.

[19] Breiner, Josh. Erdan ordered the IPS to halt the plan to expand the living space for prisoners due to a lack of budget. Haaretz 31 July 2018 (Hebrew, last accessed on 21 November 2021).

[20] Alquds, Weather Effects on the Prisoners’ Reality in the Naqab Prison, (Arabic, last accessed 7 December 2021)

[21] Ministry of Public Security. IPS Special Units. 25 July 2018 (last accessed 22 November 2021).

[22] According to the response to an FOI submitted by Who Profits Research Center to the IPS.

[23]  Ministry of Public Security. IPS Special Units. 25 July 2018 (last accessed 22 November 2021).

[24] Tender on file with Who Profits.

[25] Israel Prison Service. The Nir National Training Center. 14 June 2021 (Hebrew, last accessed 22 November2021).

[26] Azulay, Yuval. Top Sky Line Engineering won two tenders with the IPS and the Israeli Police. Globs. 14 August 2018 (Hebrew, last accessed 21 November 2021).

[27] Tender on file with Who Profits.

[28] Government Procurement Administration. Public Tender: Establishment of a control and monitoring system, supply and installation, operation and maintenance of physical protective equipment and technological security systems at East Jerusalem sites. 6 June 2019 (Hebrew, last accessed 27 December 2021).

[29] Ibid.

[30]  Government Procurement Administration. Public Tender: Establishment of a control and monitoring system, supply and installation, operation and maintenance of physical protective equipment and technological security systems at East Jerusalem sites. 6 June 2019 (Hebrew. Last accessed 27 December 2021).

[31] Government Procurement Administration. Public Tender: Establishment of a control and monitoring system, supply and installation, operation and maintenance of physical protective equipment and technological security systems at East Jerusalem sites. 6 June 2019 (Hebrew. Last accessed 27 December 2021).

[32] The Prime Minister Office. Regulating the responsibility for securing complexes in East Jerusalem, Government Resolution No. 1073. 21 January 2021 (Hebrew, last accessed 27 December 2021).

[33] Who Profits Research Center. “Big Brother” in Jerusalem’s Old City Israel’s Militarized Visual Surveillance System in Occupied East Jerusalem. November 2018.

[34] Tender on file with Who Profits

[35] BBC News. The Israeli settlements in the West Bank: what do you know about it? And why was it established?. 1 July 2020 (Arabic, last accessed 3 January 2022).

[36] Government Procurement Administration. Maintenance and installation of low voltage security systems. 6 April 2021 (Hebrew, last accessed 22 November 2021).

[37] Tender on file with Who Profits.

[38] Tender on file with Who Profits.

[39]  Azulay, Yuval. Top Sky Line Engineering won two tenders with the IPS and the Israeli Police. Globs. 14 August 2018 (Hebrew. Last accessed 21 November 2021).

[40] Tender on file with Who Profits.

[41] All information on files with Who Profits.