Shin Bet, Mossad and the IDF: who does what?

News reports often name the three in one sentence: the Shin Bet, the Mossad and the IDF carried out an operation together. They are separate bodies with separate laws, bosses and jobs. The short version: the Shin Bet guards against threats inside Israel and in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, the Mossad works abroad, and the IDF is the army.

The Shin Bet: security at home

The Shin Bet is also called Shabak, from its Hebrew name Sherut ha-Bitachon ha-Klali, General Security Service. In English it is also the GSS or the Israel Security Agency, ISA. All of these are one agency.

Its work is set out in a public law, the General Security Service Law of 2002. The law defines its mission by the threat, not by a place on the map: protecting the state and its democratic institutions against "terrorism, sabotage, subversion, espionage and disclosure of State secrets." It also protects people and sites chosen by the government, which Britannica notes includes Israel's embassies.

The service's own site says it has worked in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and the Golan since 1967. In March 2026, for example, it reported foiling a terrorist cell linked to Hamas in Judea and Samaria, working with the IDF and police.

The law places it under the government, with the Prime Minister in charge on the government's behalf, and forbids giving it any mission "for the promotion of party-political interests." A Knesset subcommittee oversees it.

The Mossad: operations abroad

The Mossad's full name is the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations; "Mossad" simply means institute. Britannica sums up its job as "foreign intelligence gathering, intelligence analysis, and covert operations."

Its director answers directly to the Prime Minister, not to the army or the Defense Minister. Unlike the Shin Bet, it has been reported to work without a law of its own: in 2021 the Jerusalem Post called it the only Israeli security agency with no applicable parliamentary law, operating mostly on prime ministers' executive orders.

The IDF: the army, and military intelligence

The Israel Defense Forces, Tzahal in Hebrew from Tzva Hagana LeYisrael, is the state's army, with ground, air and naval forces. Basic Law: The Military places it under the government, with the Minister of Defense in charge on the government's behalf and the Chief of Staff as its top commander. The same law forbids any other armed force except as permitted by law.

This is where a common mix-up starts, because the IDF has intelligence of its own. The Military Intelligence Directorate, known as Aman, is the IDF's central intelligence body. Unit 8200, the signals unit often in the news, is part of it. Britannica counts Aman, the Mossad and the Shin Bet as Israel's three major intelligence organizations. Commanders of the IDF who fought in Gaza describe that war in Naza: The Real Story.

How they work together

The clearest way to see the division of labor is in real operations.

In the rescue of four hostages at Nuseirat on 8 June 2024, Ynet reported weeks of intelligence gathering by the Shin Bet and the Hostage Headquarters, with Yamam police commandos and Shin Bet forces on the ground and IDF forces taking the hostages out. Read more on how the IDF finds hostages.

The 13 July 2024 strike on Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's terrorist wing, was described by the IDF as built on joint IDF and Shin Bet intelligence and carried out by Air Force jets.

In May 2025 the Mossad and the IDF jointly announced the recovery from Syria of the body of Zvi Feldman, a soldier missing for 43 years. And after the June 2025 campaign against Iran, the head of the Mossad credited "extraordinary cooperation between the IDF, which led the campaign, and the Mossad."

Four common mix-ups

The Shin Bet is not part of the IDF. The two work together, but one answers to the Prime Minister and the other to the Defense Minister.

The Shin Bet is not the Mossad. One deals mainly with threats at home and in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. The other works abroad.

Aman and Unit 8200 are not separate agencies. They are part of the IDF.

Yamam is neither. It is a police counterterrorism unit.

October 7: what their own reviews found

The October 7 massacre tested all of this, and each body has reviewed its part.

The IDF's investigation, published on 27 February 2025, said that it "failed in its mission to protect Israeli civilians." According to press reports of its findings, the Hamas attack concept had been known to intelligence since 2018 and was judged unfeasible. A committee under retired Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman reviewed 25 of those probes in November 2025 and found two-thirds incomplete or insufficient. It said military intelligence failed to detect how Hamas's capabilities had developed and failed to give early warning.

The Shin Bet's investigation, published on 4 March 2025, said the service had failed to give an alert and that the attack could have been prevented had it acted differently. It also pointed to an unclear division of responsibility with the IDF over who should warn of war, and to a government policy of keeping quiet in Gaza, which it said allowed Hamas to build up its forces. The Times of Israel wrote that the report largely shifted blame, and the Prime Minister's Office attacked it.

In November 2025 the State Comptroller traced the failure to the lack of an approved national security doctrine, and his wider audit of October 7 has continued. As of mid-October 2026, no state commission of inquiry had been established. How to investigate the failure remains a political dispute in Israel.