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Francesca Albanese | UN: Israel’s escalating use of torture against Palestinians in custody a preventable crime against humanity
GENEVA – Reports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg, independent human rights experts* warned today.
“Israel’s widespread and systemic abuse of Palestinians in detention and arbitrary arrest practices over decades, coupled with the absence of any restraints by the Israeli State since 7 October 2023, paint a shocking picture enabled by absolute impunity,” the experts said.
Around 9,500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently imprisoned—around one-third without charge or trial. Another unknown number are arbitrarily being held in detention facilities and ad hoc camps following a wave of arrest and abduction campaigns across Palestinian territory that targeted men, women and children particularly following 7 October.
The experts received substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape, amid atrocious inhumane conditions, with at least 53 Palestinians apparently dying as a result in 10 months.
Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.
“Allegations of gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee, now shockingly supported by voices in the Israeli political establishment and society, provide irrefutable evidence that the moral compass is lost,” the experts said. In February 2024, a number of experts also expressed grave concern regarding the reports of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence committed against Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention.
The Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory investigated Israel’s detention practices in 2023 and called on UN Member States to intervene and the International Criminal Court to promptly investigate what appeared to be a consolidated crime against humanity. The experts regret this call was not heeded.
“Torture practices are irredeemably unlawful and constitute international crimes, yet form part of the modus operandi of Israel’s notorious detention and torture system,” they warned. “These practices are intended to punish Palestinians for resisting occupation and seek to destroy them individually and collectively.”
“Israel’s genocidal destruction in Gaza, which is spreading across the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, serves as the backdrop to its abusive detention programme today,” the experts said.
“Most Palestinian detainees are de facto hostages of an unlawful occupation,” they said, referring to the July 2024 Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. They called for oversight and accountability over all Israeli practices and policies in the territory.
“Decrying the silence by Member States following the emergence of testimonies and reports of alleged maltreatment and torture, the experts called for pressure on Israel with a view to implementing a cogent system of access, monitoring and protection of Palestinian detainees. The Human Rights Council, in particular, must urgently demand the deployment of special procedures mandate holders and the Commission of Inquiry to facilities holding Palestinians, they said.
“What is required now is nothing short of an independent, international presence of human rights observers. They must become the world’s eyes in light of Israel’s brazen failure to prevent and address the heinous rights violations against prisoners and detainees,” the experts said.
*The experts: Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; Laura Nyirinkindi (Chair), Claudia Flores (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Ivana Krstić, and Haina Lu; Working group on discrimination against women and girls
The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
For more information and media request please contact: hrc-sr-opt@un.org
For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts, please contact Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org).
Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts.
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The abused becoming the abusers. It is horrendous, and – apart from the US withholding weapons and money – there is no international institution with ‘teeth’ to do anything about it. And I remember my father saying to my mother, “don’t be ridiculous, woman, the Germans would never do something like this!” I can imagine that conversation in a Jewish/Israeli household.
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Horrible things happen in the world all the time, but this is one of the times when our tax money is financing the horror, so we have a responsibility to protest it.
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A powerful condemnation of atrocities. It reminds me of the US Vietnam War mass executions at My Lai, where some of our troops slaughtered over 500 mostly women and children. Because they might have been harboring enemy fighters. Or to a lesser extent at Abu Ghraib Prison during our incursions into the Middle East, where we first saw US definitions of torture created to avoid calling the torture we did torture (waterboarding). It’s being done again today, amid the other tortures in Gaza.
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Whoops, sorry about the double post but can’t figure out how to delete the one without the link. My apologies.
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I Have always respected the difficulties Israel has faced throughout history (right alongside difficulties their opponents have faced). But Israel’s behavior has in many ways become beyond imagining. Including the horrendous, inhumane treatment described here.
I absolutely agree with Mr. Packer’s proposal. An action with ‘teeth’ to guarantee changes because, as he notes, words like ‘condemn’ carry no power and are just being brushed aside.
I can’t help but wonder if Israel is truly aware of this behavior on its world-wide standing. More than a slow-moving tarnish or erosion, it can’t help but be sweeping away long-standing wide respect, agreement and support.
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““What is required now is nothing short of an independent, international presence of human rights observers. They must become the world’s eyes in light of Israel’s brazen failure to prevent and address the heinous rights violations against prisoners and detainees,” the experts said.” Nice suggestion but like the words of the US government which “condemns” all such practices, these words are welcome but relatively worthless. The UN should simply announce to Israel that it has formed a peace-keeping military force that will enter Gaza (and perhaps the West Bank as well) and defy Israel to stop it. But, of course, the US would veto such actions in the interests of “national (meaning Israel’s) security. I think of our grandchildren as they will look back on these current events and can only hope that they, like our generation looking back on the Holocaust, will recognize it as another genocide supported and even encouraged by our nation.
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Based on the numbers I’m seeing, this article may be the least popular piece I’ve published in years — and understandably so. The situation is extremely unpleasant to read about. But we mustn’t turn away. Our government is enabling acts of pure horror. These are not isolated instances of soldiers who have gone berserk — something that happens in every war — but rather, as the UN report makes clear, these acts of rape and torture of men, women and children are part of an official policy to terrorize the Palestinian people. Our tax money at work.
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On both posts, I hesitated to “like” because, although I like that you posted them, like is not the word I want to use in response. Horrified? Sad? Disgusted? Now we are the people we wondered about who let the holocaust happen.
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Exactly, Barbara. Americans didn’t notice the holocaust until the Allied troops liberated the camps. By then, it was too late.
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Perhaps “Americans” did not know but our government, along with European governments certainly did. Never forget that the St Louis ocean liner, filled with Jewish refugees from Germany was turned away from Cuban shores, and then both the US and the UK joined in that by turning them away as well. The ship returned to European shores where some passengers got asylum, but 254 eventually died in the Holocaust. The US and the UK joined in creating Israel not because they believed in the Jewish right to a homeland, but because the anti-semitism of both nations precluded a policy of mass Jewish immigration. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/voyage-of-the-st-louis#:~:text=In%20May%201939%2C%20the%20German,allow%20the%20ship%20to%20land.
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Perhaps Americans did not know, but our government certainly was aware. We must never forget that this nation turned away an ocean liner full of Jewish refugees who sought asylum in the US, instead sending them back to Europe where apparently many were then killed. Both the US and the UK helped create the nation of Israel not necessarily or because they believed that Jews had a right to the land and needed a “homeland”, but because the anti-semitism of both nations meant they did not wish to have a large number of Jewish refugees coming to their shores.
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I’m sure it isn’t popular, the truth rarely is. The fact that we in Israel have gone through horrifying experiences in no way justifies the IDF and government’s permitting of torture. It is completely horrifying, and so many Israelis do NOT accept it. No matter what has happened to us we are accountable for our actions. I cannot understand why Biden is supporting us with weapons and not simply saying. STop the war. STop the torture. Release prisoners. Release hostages. No matter what decisions and choices are made in Israel, in the US, by the Hamas, by Hezbollah and Iran, there will be terrible consequences. We will have to face them with as much courage as possible. But our government is out of control and the only person who can halt the rush towards hell on earth is Biden.
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Thanks, Noelle.
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