Closed-circuit cameras have always been part of Israel's high-tech approach to security, but in recent months, the presence of cameras and Palestinians' use of cell phones have come back to haunt the Israeli security establishment.

A security camera perched on top of the store owned by Hussein Abu Khdeir provided key evidence in the kidnapping and murder of his son Mohammed, showing the Israelis involved and the car in which they abducted him. It was a cell phone camera that captured Israeli policemen beating Mohammed's subdued 15-year-old Palestinian-American cousin, Tariq, who was visiting Jerusalem, on vacation from Tampa, Florida.

A month ago, Israeli officials and spokesmen were caught off guard on May 15, when a security camera atop a carpentry shop captured Israeli soldiers' unprovoked shooting of two Palestinian school boys in the Beitunia area. Israeli officials, believing that there were no cameras at the site, claimed that the soldiers had not used live bullets and that those shot with rubber bullets had been throwing stones at soldiers. Autopsies and the security camera exposed their attempts to falsify reality.

More than three months ago, Israel, apparently worried that video footage would contradict its narrative, claimed that CCTV cameras on the Israeli side of the King Hussein Bridge had not been operational on March 10, the day Jordanian judge Raed Zuaitar was shot and killed by a still unidentified Israeli soldier. An Arab member of the Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, said the cameras had been in use that day and has demanded that the Israeli army release the video, but to no avail.