Human Rights Voices

In an annual report published Tuesday summarizing its activities over the past year, the Shin Bet said it interrogated more than 650 suspects from the Gaza Strip, thwarted 1,040 major terror attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem, busted 20 terror cells among Arab Israeli citizens and foiled a record 13 Iranian espionage plots.

Since the Hamas-led onslaught that sparked the war on October 7, 2023, the Shin Bet said it was involved in killing dozens of top officers in Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in both Gaza and Lebanon. The internal security agency also said it assisted in several missions to rescue hostages from Gaza and unveiled audio from the rescue of Cpl. Ori Megidish last October.

Additionally, the agency said it helped thwart hundreds of cyberattacks on Israel; secure hundreds of Israeli officials on trips to Gaza, Lebanon and Syria; and protect dozens of Israeli groups abroad — including Israeli participants in the Malmo Eurovision and Paris Olympics — amid a worldwide rise in violence against Israelis and Jews.

During 2024, the agency said, Shin Bet agents assisted in detaining some 1,350 Palestinians passing through IDF checkpoints, including 40 senior commanders, 165 people considered close to top officials, 45 suspected of involvement in the October 7 onslaught and another 100 thought to have information about the hostages.

In all, the Shin Bet said it “handled” some 2,500 suspects from the Strip this past year, over 650 of whom were later interrogated.

According to the agency, the interrogations yielded information that was “life-saving” for troops in Gaza and led to the targeting of hundreds of terror sites there.

The Shin Bet said it helped guide operations in Gaza to kill over 30 top Hamas officials, including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who soldiers shot dead in a chance encounter in Rafah in October, and military chief Muhammad Deif, who was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on Khan Younis in July and confirmed dead a month later after numerous failed assassination attempts.

Both were architects of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, devastating attack on southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists stormed the border to kill some 1,200 people and abduct 251, sparking the war in Gaza.

The Shin Bet said it assisted in the elimination of 25 Lebanon-based senior commanders in Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Among those killed by Israel in Lebanon was Hamas’s deputy political leader, Saleh al-Arouri.

‘Bringing you home’

The Shin Bet was also involved in three hostage rescue missions in Gaza since the beginning of the war, as well as several missions to recover the bodies of captives.

To date, Israel has rescued eight hostages alive and recovered the bodies of 38 people, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to flee their captors. It is believed that 96 of the hostages abducted on October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza, including 34 confirmed dead.

Hamas released 105 hostages during the weeklong ceasefire last November, and four hostages before that.

The Shin Bet released a never-before-heard recording from the October 30, 2023, operation in which troops in north Gaza freed Megidish, a surveillance soldier kidnapped from the Nahal Oz army base.

In the recording, a Shin Bet says to Megidish over the radio: “Ori, Ori my dear, you are in good hands, the guys rescued you, they’re bringing you home. You are amazing and brave, well done. Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m okay,” Megidish can be heard saying.

West Bank and Jerusalem

In the West Bank and Jerusalem, the Shin Bet said it had foiled 1,040 “significant” terror attacks, including 689 planned shootings, 326 involving explosive devices, 13 stabbings, nine car-rammings, two suicide bombings and one kidnapping.

Relative to 2023, which saw a years-high surge in terror attacks, the Shin Bet reported a 40% drop in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year.

The agency said that, in cooperation with the IDF and police, it participated in dozens of special operations in the West Bank, including to detain suspects or eliminate threats, as well as several raids against gunmen operating in hospitals in Jenin and Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Since the October 7 Hamas atrocities, Israel has largely blocked entry to Israel for Palestinians from the West Bank, disrupting the livelihood of thousands, and carried out large-scale counterterrorism operations there. Troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas, according to the IDF.

During that span, more than 835 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority health ministry. The military has said that the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 43 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.

Terror cells, espionage and cyberattacks inside Israel

Within Israel, the Shin Bet said that during 2024 it carried out hundreds of operations, uncovering 20 terror cells made up of Arab citizens. Five of the cells had planned to carry out terror attacks with explosive devices or car bombs, the agency said.

On 32 occasions, the Shin Bet said, it had dispatched the elite Tequila team to foil imminent terror attacks. The counterterrorism force is made of fighters from the Shin Bet and the police’s elite Yamam unit.

The Shin Bet also said it had detained a record number of suspects in espionage-related cases in 2024 — an increase of 400% compared to 2023. On Monday, the agency said it had arrested a resident of Petah Tikva for allegedly torching cars and surveilling the phone of former defense minister Benny Gantz on behalf of Iran.

According to the Shin Bet, 13 incidents of Israelis allegedly spying or carrying out other tasks for Iranian elements were foiled in 2024. The Shin Bet said 27 indictments had been filed in connection to the incidents.

Iran, which is openly committed to Israel’s destruction, supports Hamas and has smuggled arms to Palestinian terror groups in the West Bank. The Islamic Republic took a blow this past year as the Assad regime in Syria fell and Israel decimated Hezbollah, Tehran’s Lebanese proxy.

The Shin Bet said it also helped the IDF and National Cyber Directorate foil some 700 cyberattacks in 2024, out of thousands of cyberattacks by various adversaries amid the Gaza war — a five-fold increase relative to previous years, according to the Shin Bet.