With the
Israeli declaration of independence in 1948, the Shabak was founded as a branch of the Israel Defense Forces and was initially headed by
Isser Harel (the father of Israeli Intelligence, who later headed the
Mossad). Responsibility for Shabak activity was later moved from the IDF to the office of the prime minister. During the
1948 Arab–Israeli war, Shabak's responsibilities included only internal security affairs. In February 1949 (a short while before the end of the war), its responsibilities were extended to counter-espionage. One of the Shabak's leading successes was obtaining a copy of
the secret speech made by
Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, in which he denounced
Stalin. A Polish edition of the speech was provided to the Israeli embassy in
Warsaw by the boyfriend of a secretary of a Polish communist official. The Shabak's Polish liaison officer conveyed the copy to Israel. The Israeli government then decided to share the information with the United States, which published it with Israeli approval. On the other hand, a study published in 2013 by Matitiahu Mayzel casts doubt on the story, arguing that the speech was not secret and that it was conveyed to the West by multiple sources, including Soviet political and intelligence agencies. A notable achievement in counter-espionage was the 1961 capture of
Israel Beer, who was revealed to be a Soviet
spy. Beer was a
lieutenant colonel in the reserves, a senior security commentator and close friend of Ben-Gurion and reached high Israeli circles. Beer was tried and sentenced to ten years in prison (later extended by the Supreme Court to fifteen years, following his appeal), where he died. A year before,
Kurt Sitte, a
Christian German from the
Sudetenland and a
professor in the
Technion, was revealed as a
Czechoslovak spy.
Refaat Al-Gammal was an Egyptian spy who infiltrated Israeli society for 17 years. In 2004,
Haaretz published a report that alleged he was in fact a double agent. Haaretz would go on to claim that in 1967 he had provided Egypt false information about Israel's battle plans, claiming it would begin with ground operations. The Egyptians thus left their aircraft on open runways, which enabled the
Israel Air Force to
knock out Egypt's air force within three hours of the outbreak of the
Six-Day War. After the war, monitoring terrorist activity in the
West Bank and
Gaza Strip became a major part of Shabak's mission. During 1984–1986, Shabak experienced a major crisis following the
Kav 300 affair in which four Palestinian militants hijacked a bus. Two of the hijackers were killed in the ensuing standoff and the other two were killed shortly after being taken into custody by Shabak officers, who later covered up the event and conspired to frame a senior
IDF officer. Following the affair, Shabak head
Avraham Shalom was forced to resign. The 1987
Landau Commission, set up to investigate Shabak interrogation methods, criticized the organization and established guidelines to regulate what forms of physical pressure could be used on prisoners. Among the practices authorised were "keeping prisoners in excruciatingly uncomfortable postures, covering their heads with filthy and malodorous sacks and depriving them of sleep." Human rights groups in Israel maintained that this amounts to
torture. A 1995 official report by
Miriam Ben-Porat, made public in 2000, showed that Shin Bet "routinely" went beyond the "moderate physical pressure" authorised by the Landau Commission. In the report, Israel admitted for the first time that Palestinian detainees were tortured during the
First Intifada, between 1988 and 1992. Later, Raviv was acquitted of the charges that he encouraged
Yigal Amir to kill Yitzhak Rabin. A few months after the Rabin assassination, Hamas chief bombmaker
Yahya Ayyash was assassinated in a
targeted killing in which an explosive device was planted in his
cellular phone. Gillon was replaced by
Israeli Navy admiral Ami Ayalon, who helped to restore the organizational
morale, after the debacle of the Rabin assassination, and to rehabilitate its public image. In 2000, Ayalon was replaced by
Avi Dichter, an ex-
Sayeret Matkal commando and experienced Shabak agent, who tightened the working relationship with the Israel Defense Forces and
Israeli police. Dichter was in charge when the
al-Aqsa Intifada erupted. He turned Shabak into a prominent player in the war on terrorism after the collapse of the
2000 Camp David Summit. In November 2003, four former heads of Shabak (
Avraham Shalom,
Yaakov Peri, Carmi Gillon and Ami Ayalon) called upon the Government of Israel to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. In May 2005, Dichter was replaced by
Yuval Diskin, who served until 2011. In 2007, the service launched its first-ever public recruitment drive, unveiling a "slick Website" and buying on-line ads in Israel and abroad in a campaign aimed at "attract[ing] top-tier computer programmers" to its "cutting-edge" IT division. On March 18, 2008, it was announced that Shabak's official website would also offer a
blog, where four of its agents would discuss anonymously how they were recruited, and what sort of work they perform; they would also answer questions sent in by members of the public. The decision to launch the blog was made by the Shin Bet's top brass, including head
Yuval Diskin, and is part of an attempt to attract high-tech workers to the agency's growing IT department. According to Shabak officers, the Web site and blog are aimed also at promoting a more accessible and positive public image for the security service, long associated with "dark, undercover and even violent activity". In 2011,
Yoram Cohen was chosen as the new head of Shabak, and served until 2016. In 2016,
Nadav Argaman was chosen as the new head of Shabak, and assumed office on 8 May 2016. On 11 October 2021,
Ronen Bar was announced as the next head of the ISA, and took office on 13 October. On 16 October 2023, following the
successful surprise attacks by Hamas against Israel and the subsequent outbreak of the
Gaza war, ISA director Ronen Bar took responsibility for his role in the failure of Israeli intelligence to predict the oncoming war from Gaza. A subsequent Shin Bet report also stated that Israeli government policies may have emboldened Hamas militants to attack. In August 2024 Bar wrote to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that Israel's existence is threatened by Jewish settler riots and attacks on Palestinian villages on the
West Bank. On 21 April 2025 Bar submitted an
affidavit to the
Supreme Court of Israel, in which he stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded personal loyalty from him, attempting to use the service capabilities for political and personal gain rather than for
state security, before ultimately trying to fire him from the organization. The affidavit states that Netanyahu explicitly told Shin Bet to conduct surveillance on citizens involved in
anti-government protests. ==Information gathering, interrogation methods and torture==