(Acronym for the Hebrew "Sherut haBitachon haKlali," which means General Security Services.) This agency conducts security intelligence work within
Israel and the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, as opposed to the
Mossad, which deals with intelligence gathering on the international front. The Shabak is especially involved in providing intelligence about organizations and individuals it deems to be involved in terrorist activities. Its methods of recruiting Palestinian collaborators have been controversial, and
Israeli and international human rights groups labeled its interrogation methods as torture. In 1999, the Israeli High Court ruled Shabak's use of torture illegal, yet the Israeli human rights organizations B'tselem and the Public Committee Against Torture state that the agency continues to torture. See BBC's "
Profile: Israel's Shin Bet Agency"; and "Israeli rights group accuses Shin Bet of using torture despite High Court ban," The
Jerusalem Post, September 11, 2014. See also "
Spotlight shines on Palestinian collaborators," Jonathan Cook, Al Jazeera English, Feb 17, 2014. For a documentary film based on interviews with all the surviving former heads of the Shin Bet, see "
The Gatekeepers."