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The Israel Security Agency, better known by the acronyms Shabak or Shin Bet, is Israel's internal security service. Its motto is "Magen v'lo Yera'eh". The Shin Bet's headquarters are located in northwest Tel Aviv, north of Yarkon Park.
Carmi Gillon is an Israeli politician and a former Israeli ambassador to Denmark and head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, from 1994 to 1996.
Hooding is the placing of a hood over the entire head of a prisoner. Hooding is widely considered to be a form of torture; one legal scholar considers the hooding of prisoners to be a violation of international law, specifically the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, which demand that persons under custody or physical control of enemy forces be treated humanely. Hooding can be dangerous to a prisoner's health and safety. It is considered to be an act of torture when its primary purpose is sensory deprivation during interrogation; it causes "disorientation, isolation, and dread." According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hooding is used to prevent a person from seeing, to disorient them, to make them anxious, to preserve their torturer's anonymity, and to prevent the person from breathing freely.
This article describes the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which prohibited it. Torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments.
HaMoked is an Israel based human rights organization founded by Dr. Lotte Salzberger with the stated aim of assisting "Palestinians subjected to the Israeli occupation which causes severe and ongoing violation of their rights." HaMoked states that it works for the enforcement of the standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The five techniques, also known as deep interrogation, are a group of interrogation methods developed by the United Kingdom during the 20th century and are currently regarded as a form of torture. Originally developed by British forces in a variety of 20th-century conflicts, they are most notable for being applied to detainees in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The five collective methods are prolonged wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink.
International human rights organizations, along with the United Nations, and the United States Department of State, have reported human rights violations committed by the State of Israel, particularly against minority groups. These reports include violations of the rights of Palestinians, both inside and outside Israel as well as other groups in Israel.
Camp 1391, also referred to as Unit 1391 or Facility 1391, is an Israel Defense Forces prison camp in northern Israel for "high-risk" prisoners. It is run by Unit 504. The existence of the prison was unknown to the public before 2003, and most information about it remains classified, although the Supreme Court of Israel ordered the release of some information about the jail.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Bucharest, and Guantanamo Bay—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, rape, sexual assault, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures, to which he himself was subjected, were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
The future of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is considered central to progress in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Cases of prison sentences include the charges of terrorism or being a member of an "illegal terrorist organization", such as Hamas or prior to the Oslo Accords the Palestine Liberation Organization, but according to some accounts also by political activism such as raising a Palestinian flag.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel is an Israeli NGO established in 1990 that monitors the use of torture and ill-treatment by Israeli security services against Palestinians under detention. PCATI was founded in 1990 in reaction to what it describes as "the ongoing policy of the Israeli government, which permitted the systematic use of torture and ill treatment in Shin Bet interrogations".
Alexandra Uteev "Alix" Johnson was a United States Foreign Service Officer from 1972 to 1979. She is notable for the controversy that arose in 1979 over two reports that she wrote alleging that Israeli authorities systematically used physical abuse to interrogate Palestinian detainees.
The Film that Wasn't is a two-part documentary series about interrogations in Israel and the Occupied Territories, including the use of torture in those interrogations. It aired on Israeli television in 1993 and 1994. The film was directed by Ram Loevy.
The Landau Commission was a three-man Commission set up by the Israeli Government in 1987 following a long-running scandal over the deaths of two Palestinian prisoners in custody and the wrongful conviction of a Circassian IDF officer. The Commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, found that the GSS interrogators routinely used physical force during the interrogation of prisoners and then committed perjury at subsequent trials. In its conclusion, approved by Cabinet in November 1987, it lay down guidelines for the use of a "moderate measure of physical pressure". The details of the recommended methods were described in the classified appendix to the report. In 1994 the UN Committee Against Torture stated: "The Landau Commission Report, permitting as it does 'moderate physical pressure' as a lawful mode of interrogation, is completely unacceptable to this Committee."
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detention and Interrogation Program and its use of torture during interrogation in U.S. government communiqués on detainees in CIA custody. The report covers CIA activities before, during, and after the "War on Terror". The initial report was approved on December 13, 2012, by a vote of 9–6, with seven Democrats, one Independent, and one Republican voting in favor of the report and six Republicans voting in opposition.
Israeli torture in the occupied territories refers to the use of torture and systematic degrading practices on Palestinians detained by Israeli forces in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The practice, routine for decades, was eventually reviewed by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1999, which found that "coercive interrogation" of Palestinians had been widespread, and deemed it unlawful, though permissible in certain cases. Torture is also practiced by the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Torture in the State of Palestine refers to the use of torture and systematic degrading practices on civilians detained by Palestinian forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As of 2018, Amnesty reported that LGBT people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment.
The 2023 Israel–Hamas war led to an intensive interrogation program by Israeli intelligence agencies, particularly Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet and IDF's Unit 504, targeting captured "Hamas militants". Following the sudden attack on 7 October, which killed more than 1,100 Israelis, alleged militants were captured in Israel. Israel has claimed that the interrogation of the suspects revealed significant insights into the group's strategies, ideologies, and operational methods that played a crucial role in Israel's military response and in shaping the global understanding of the conflict.
During the Israel–Hamas war, Israel has systematically tortured Palestinians detained in its prison system. This torture has been reported by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as Israeli nonprofit human rights organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights Israel and B'Tselem.