Palestinian Territory – The international community must act swiftly and forcefully to end Israel’s systematic and widespread use of torture and other serious violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees, particularly those from the Gaza Strip. These acts of torture and abuse are committed as part of Israel’s full-scale genocide against the Palestinian people, ongoing since 7 October 2023.
The prohibition of torture is a peremptory norm of international law, imposing a duty on all states to enforce this prohibition. All states are legally obligated to prevent and punish acts of torture under all circumstances; torture is a crime that cannot be allowed, justified, or tolerated, even in armed conflicts.
The international community continues to remain virtually silent about Israel’s egregious human rights violations, despite mounting evidence of their commission and continued recognition by numerous national and international human rights frameworks and institutions. This allows Israel to continue committing these crimes, shields its perpetrators from accountability, and denies its victims their most basic rights and human dignity.
A report released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday (Wednesday 31 July), detailing cases of torture and ill-treatment from 7 October 2023 to 30 June 2024, affirms that Israel has committed grave human rights violations during arrests and detentions since the start of its genocide in the Strip. These violations include the denial of the right to life, liberty, and protection from torture and other ill-treatment, as well as the practice of arbitrary detention, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, all of which may qualify as war crimes.
According to the UN report, Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been subjected to crimes of torture and inhumane treatment that target all groups without exception, including men, women, children, and the elderly, as well as doctors, journalists, and human rights defenders. These crimes begin at the moment of arrest and do not stop until the prisoner’s release—if their release occurs.
The UN report focuses on Israel’s systematic policy of mass and daily arbitrary arrest campaigns against Palestinians, which is a blatant flouting of international law. The Israeli laws include Military Order 1651 of 2010 and the Unlawful Combatants Law of 2002 and its amendments, which give Israeli authorities the right to hold an administrative detainee or prisoner for an indefinite amount of time without charging them with any crime; deny them the right to a fair trial; and prevent them from to be informed with evidence that has been attributed to them—which typically stays secret under the guise of “state security”. Consequently, the legitimate right to contest the detention is undermined, since neither the detainee nor their attorney is aware of the charges or detention reasons.
The report concludes that Israel’s widespread arrests of Palestinian civilians and their unjustified, prolonged detentions amount to an act of collective punishment. It also stresses that arbitrary detention during armed conflicts, i.e. the willful denial of a protected person’s right to a fair trial, is regarded as a war crime, and is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
The various forms of torture that Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres endure, such as severe beatings that sometimes result in death, are also discussed in the UN report. It also documents the deaths of 53 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centres since 7 October 2023 as a result of torture or the willful denial of essential medical care.
According to the report, Palestinian prisoners and detainees also face the confiscation of personal belongings and severe restrictions on their access to food, water, sanitation, electricity, medical care, media, family visits, and legal representation. Furthermore, they are held in extremely overcrowded cells and cage-like facilities.
Other forms of torture and mistreatment that Palestinian prisoners and detainees—including women and children—are subjected to are covered in the report as well. These practices include prolonged handcuffing and blindfolding, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme cold, being forced to kneel on gravel, intentional humiliation, extortion, electric shocks, being burned with cigarettes, and being forced to take hallucinogenic medications.
The report details several incidents where members of the Israeli army and security personnel committed sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, and raped Palestinian detainees, including both men and women. The Geneva Conventions prohibit these acts because they constitute torture and are per se classified as war crimes.
According to the UN report, the widespread practice of detention by Israel, combined with its refusal to admit that detainees have been deprived of their liberty and held without the Israeli authorities informing their families of their location or fate, puts them outside the legal protection system, amounts to the crime of enforced disappearance. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court classifies the crime of enforced disappearance as a crime against humanity.
In a recent report released on 21 May, Euro-Med Monitor documents the testimonies of about 100 released Palestinian detainees. These testimonies confirm that the Israeli authorities and army have committed horrific crimes of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and inhuman treatment against thousands of Palestinian civilians who were arrested as part of Israel’s genocide in the Strip.
In the 50-plus-page report, titled “Hostages of Israeli Revenge in the Gaza Strip”, Euro-Med Monitor brings to light the widespread practice of arbitrary collective and individual arrests by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the Strip. Those arrested during Israel’s military incursions and its ground attacks on cities, camps, and residential neighbourhoods throughout the Strip include women, children, the elderly, and displaced individuals.
Over the past few days, a number of Israelis and members of the Israeli Knesset have stormed Israeli prisons and security facilities in protest against the detention of several Israeli army soldiers for inquiry into allegations of severe torture and brutal sexual assault against a Palestinian prisoner.
The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor believes that the Israeli authorities’ claims of conducting local investigations fall within their attempts to obstruct the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court by arguing the absence of the complementarity principle, even though these procedures and investigations have proven to lack seriousness, as evident from the quick release of these accused individuals.
The international community cannot continue to ignore Israel’s horrific crimes against Palestinians, including torture, rape, sexual assault, inhumane treatment, and enforced disappearances. Over time, states that overlook these acts will be found to have violated their international obligations through inaction, or some may even be considered complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinian prisoners and detainees. In either case, victims will be entitled to hold these states and their officials—particularly decision-makers—legally accountable on both criminal and civil levels.
All states and the international community have a responsibility to carry out their international legal and ethical duties, as well as to implement the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ most recent report’s recommendations and any other relevant advice from the UN’s independent experts and other capable international organisations. These recommendations include:
1. Take immediate action, apply real pressure and influence, and use tools to force Israel to stop committing crimes against Palestinian prisoners and detainees and pressure it to comply with the rules of international law and the decisions of the International Court of Justice.
2- Refrain from collaborating or participating with Israel in committing crimes against Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and refrain from providing any form of support or assistance to Israel in relation to committing these crimes, including refraining from establishing contractual relations or providing assistance in the military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other fields that may contribute to the continuation of these crimes.
3- Pressure Israel to immediately stop committing the crime of enforced disappearance against Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip, immediately disclose all secret detention facilities, and disclose Gaza prisoners’ names, fate and places of detention, and assume full responsibility for their lives and safety.
4- Pressure the Israeli authorities to release all Palestinian detainees who have been arbitrarily arrested, and to ensure that all fair trial procedures are followed if the accused are brought to trial.
5- Intervene to ensure the return of the remains of Palestinian prisoners and detainees who died in Israeli prisons and detention centers.
6- Pressure Israel not to enforce any Israeli legislation that violates the rights of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including the recent amendments to this legislation.
7. Calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to take up its responsibilities and visit Palestinian prisoners and detainees in all Israeli prisons and detention centres, verify the conditions of their detention, look for missing and forcibly disappeared people, help uncover their fate, and take public positions, including making statements, each time Israel forbids it from carrying out its mandated duties, most notably visiting Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
8- Conduct an immediate, independent and impartial international investigation into the circumstances of the deaths of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees who died in Israeli prisons, and the crimes of torture, rape, and sexual violence committed against them, especially since Israel began its unprecedented, large-scale military attack on the Gaza Strip on October 7, and take appropriate steps to hold those responsible accountable and provide justice to the victims.
9-Collaboratively and seriously working at all levels to submit specialized reports to the International Criminal Court on the crimes to which Palestinian prisoners and detainees are subjected in Israeli prisons and detention centres, especially after October 7.
10- Support the work of the International Criminal Court in its investigations into the situation in Palestine, and do not obstruct its issuance of arrest warrants for all those responsible for committing these crimes and bringing them to justice and holding them accountable, and comply with arrest and extradition requests if they are issued, and cooperate for the purpose of arresting the Israeli defendants against whom these warrants are issued, and prevent their escape, and work to hand them over without delay to the International Criminal Court in accordance with the relevant international procedures and rules.
11- States must implement their international obligations to prosecute perpetrators before their national courts by exercising universal jurisdiction over serious violations, including acts of torture and other ill-treatment committed by Israel against Palestinians, which trigger such jurisdiction regardless of the place where the crime occurred, the nationality of the perpetrator and/or the victim, in accordance with the laws in force in those States.
12- Urging and calling on the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and demanding them to conduct immediate and comprehensive investigations into all crimes committed by the Israeli army and security forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, each in accordance with their mandate, and to communicate with the victims of these crimes and their families, as well as provide reports on these crimes to all relevant parties to prepare for the work of fact-finding committees and international courts in reviewing, probing, and holding trials regarding the Israeli crimes and justice for victims.
13- Ensuring compensation and redress for the victims of Palestinian prisoners and detainees and their families and redressing the damage resulting from the serious crimes and grave violations committed by Israel against them, in accordance with the rules of international law.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe
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