Hundreds of Hamas terrorists have been captured or surrendered to Israeli forces since October 7th and the information they provided to interrogators has been invaluable and even life-saving for IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza.

But how are the interrogations carried out so quickly amid the war? Former Shin Bet official Yossi Amrosi, who is currently serving as an interrogator as part of his reserve service, spoke with Arutz Sheva and shed some light on the process.

“The IDF and Shin Bet sent Shin Bet interrogators from Unit 504 of the Intelligence Directorate to the field and they interrogate in the field and pass the information along to the combat forces,” he said. “Later, the terrorists are taken to Shin Bet interrogation facilities, where interrogators attempt to continue to collect tactical and strategic intelligence from them. For instance, we sit with a terrorist in Khan Younis and he tells us what he knows and not only about what he did. He knows about booby-trapped houses, tunnel shafts, launch sites, and more, and the information is passed on to the forces in the field within hours, and the battalion commander and the company commander on the ground know where the threats are. We don’t know everything but the information we pass on saves lives.”

“Interrogation is a profession. The interrogators are very experienced. I’ve dealt with fighting Gazan terror for thirty years. An interrogation involves a battle of minds, persuasion, and trickery, and you’ll be surprised to hear that most interrogees talk. They understand that the game is over and they have nothing to lose anymore, there’s no reason to hold out. We convince them that it pays to finish the interrogation, to tell us what they know.”

“The interrogators ‘write books’ with all of the intelligence they glean from them. Even an electrician who wired the tunnels can supply us with an incredible amount of information, and he provides that information. We interrogate him, check its reliability, and pass it to the forces, and within minutes or hours it reaches the forces on the ground.”

Arutz Sheva asked Amrosi, who interrogated Nukhba terrorists who participated in the October 7th atrocities, if he was surprised by any of his findings.

“I was surprised by the level of cruelty,” he responded. “I’ve never seen such cruelty, maybe excluding the case of the Fogel family and the murder of Shalhevet Pass, but we haven’t seen such great cruelty on such a large scale.”

Amrosi believes that the cruelty is the result of three things: “The extreme religiosity, incitement in the media and social media, and the education from birth. They, as well as Palestinian children in Yehudah and Shomron, are educated about Jew-hatred and the destruction of the state and people of Israel. Look at Hamas summer camps – while Israeli children go swimming and play soccer, [Palestinian children] train with weapons so they can grow up to fight Jews.”

Amrosi concluded by saying that collecting intelligence is “a substantial and fundamental challenge for Unit 504 of the Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet coordinators who work day and night, non-stop, since this intelligence is worth more than gold. There are cases where we prevented soldiers from entering a booby-trapped house an hour or two before they were supposed to enter them. This is life-saving information.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)