Israel’s High Court of Justice has authorized the country’s domestic security service to use physical force in the interrogation of two Islamic militants.
A Shin Bet official told the court this week that Khader Mubarak, a West Bank resident who is a suspected leader of Hamas, had information about planned bomb attacks in Israel.
The other detainee, Islamic Jihad member Muhammad Abdel Aziz Khamadan, was said by the Shin Bet to have “essential” information on a terrorist attack planned for the near future.
The Shin Bet had asked the court to lift a ban on the use of force and to allow the use of “moderate physical force” in the two interrogations.
Originally from a West Bank village in the Ramallah area, Khamadan was deported to Lebanon more than three years ago as part of a mass deportation of Islamic Jihad and Hamas activists by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
He was later allowed to return to his home, but has since been detained a number of times by Israeli security forces.
Israeli security forces went on high alert at the end of last month, after receiving warnings that the Islamic Jihad group was planning to carry out a terrorist attack inside Israe.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
