The ISA task is to provide intelligence on when and where the target
will be vulnerable to the strike. The required information for a suc-
cessful targeted killing is when the target is present at some spot not
surrounded by civilians. The next task is to react to IAF drone feed-
back to be certain that the people at the site are indeed the wanted ter-
rorists. This part is known as identification and incrimination.
The ISA has likewise succeeded in uncovering dozens of terrorist
groups within the Israeli Arab population. Most of these were di-
rected by the Iranian-Lebanese group Hizbullah and by Palestinian
terrorist factions such as the aforementioned Al-Aqsa Martyrs’
Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In terms of quality and
quantity of intelligence gathering, the ISA is considered to be one of
the best intelligence services in the world. It relies mainly on human
intelligence (HUMINT) from the local population for collecting in-
formation about planned terror attacks or about the location of terror
leaders. The organization has enjoyed overwhelming success with
informants in its targeted killings. The killing of Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin on 22 March 2004 and of Abd al-Aziz Rantissi on 17 April
2004 show how deeply the ISA has penetrated the Palestinian mili-
tias. As a result, the Palestinian groups, mainly the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’
Brigades, have started lynching suspected collaborators or killing
them on the street without trial. The ISA also extracts information by
interrogating suspects.
Until the 1980s the ISA used controversial methods, including beat-
ings, to extract information. But in 1987, after complaints of excessive
use of violence in interrogations of Palestinian prisoners, the Landau
Commission published a directive setting criteria for lawful interroga-
tion methods. Only moderate physical pressure was to be permitted,
and then only in the case of a “time bomb”—a terrorist attack that was
about to occur so that immediate steps had to be taken to thwart it. In
1999 the Israeli Supreme Court discussed the ISA interrogation meth-
ods and ruled that physical pressure was to be banned altogether. Ac-
cordingly, the ISA now bases its interrogations on psychological pres-
sure, in which it has become highly effective. However, complaints
about physical pressure continue. In 2002 the Knesset passed the Is-
raeli Security Agency Lawregulating ISA activity. According to the
law, the prime minister carries ministerial responsibility for this activ-
ity; the director of the ISAwill serve a term of no more than five years,ISRAELI SECURITY AGENCY/SHERUTH BITAHON KLALI • 13306-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:24 AM Page 133