Haaretz recently published a sensational article, which could have been ripped straight out of a television courtroom drama: Israeli prosecutors dropped all charges against three Arab residents of Jaffa, who had confessed during a Shin Bet interrogation to a serious attack on a soldier, after security-camera footage proved they were not even at the site of the assault.
What could have compelled these innocent people to confess to a crime they did not commit, which might have landed them in jail for many years? For those of us who routinely deal with the operational methods of the Shin Bet, the answer was clear: torture.
An investigative report that aired on Hamakor last week only confirmed what we had already deduced by connecting the dots. The detainees were suspected of security offences at the height of a national crisis; they are Palestinian citizens of Israel; they were placed in detention and interrogated by the Shin Bet; therefore, they were tortured.