Israel has 'de facto state policy' of organised torture, says UN report

Summary

Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”.The report, published on Friday as part of the committee’s regular monitoring of countries that have signed the UN convention against torture, also said Palestinian detainees were humiliated by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on”, were systematically denied medical care and subject to excessive use of restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation”.The UN committee of 10 independent experts raised concern about the wholesale use of Israel’s unlawful combatants law to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children. The latest figures published by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that as of the end of September the Israel Prison Service was holding 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention”, meaning without trial.The new UN report, covering a two-year period since the beginning of the Gaza war on 7 October 2023, draws attention to the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand”, noting the age of criminal responsibility imposed by Israel is 12, and that children younger than 12 have also been detained.Children categorised as security prisoners, the report says, “have severe restrictions on family contact, may be held in solitary confinement, and do not have access to education, in violation of international standards”. It appeals to Israel to amend its legislation so that solitary confinement is not used against children.The UN committee, which was established to monitor implementation of the 1984 UN convention against torture, goes...