Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, denies torturing Hamas suspects as they conduct one of the most intense interrogation programs in the country’s history. However, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel alleges that Israel uses tactics like sleep deprivation, stress positions and extreme temperatures to get information from suspects. The agency is interrogating Hamas suspects captured during the Oct. 7 attacks to extract confessions, get information for the future, and produce videos for Israel to promote to the West. Shalom Ben Hanan, a retired intelligence officer who returned to his job in light of Oct. 7 and witnessed the interrogations said that media attention and video footage “was a very important goal in this specific interrogation.” When NBC asked if the Hamas suspects, who were seen in videos with “bruises on their faces and marks on their wrists,” were tortured, Hanan insisted that there was “no torture in Shin Bet interrogations” but added, “They were captured in combat. It wasn’t a polite capture.”
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