Shabeh is a combined torture that involves putting the detainees in an awkward, painful position ("shabeh position"), playing loud music, covering the head with a sack, depriving them of sleep, and inflicting other suffering, for prolonged time, usually for several days, but it can be up to several months. Descriptions vary.[1]
The Shin Bet (also called in various sources "General Security Service" or "Israel Security Agency") uses it, together with other methods, for interrogation of Palestinian detainees. Often Shin Bet and the Office of the State Attorney of Israel argues that milder methods of shabeh are "security measures", rather than torture.[1] In 2000, Jessica Montell reported that a 1998 opinion survey by B'Tselem found that 76% of Israelis agreed that shabeh constitutes a torture; however, only 27% opposed to its common use and 35% more approved its use in special "ticking bomb" cases.[2]
In September 1999, Israel's High Court of Justice considered several petitions that contested the legality of the interrogation methods employed by Shin Bet, including shabeh and in a unanimous ruling all methods of physical force, including holding in the shabeh position were outlawed.[2][1]