The United Nations (UN) committee on torture says there is evidence that Israel is operating a “de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”.
The committee regularly reviews the records of all countries which have signed the convention against torture, taking testimony from their governments, and from human rights groups, reports BBC.
During Israel’s review both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups gave harrowing details about conditions in Israeli detention centres. It is alleged that thousands of Palestinians have been detained by Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7 2023.
Under Israel’s laws on administrative detention and on Unlawful Combatants – suspects who cannot be classed as prisoner of war – they can be held for long periods without access to a lawyer or family members.
Many Palestinian families say they have waited months to even find out that a loved has been detained, amounting, the UN committee said, to “enforced disappearance”.
The committee was particularly critical of Israel’s reported use of the Unlawful Combatants law to detain whole groups of Palestinians, including children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
But it is the reported conditions in detention which make the grimmest reading in the committee’s conclusions, published today.
Palestinians, the evidence suggests, are regularly deprived of food and water, and subjected to severe beatings, attacks by dogs, electrocution, water boarding, and sexual violence. Some are allegedly permanently shackled, denied access to a toilet, and forced to wear diapers.
The committee concluded that such treatment “amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity”. It said evidence of a “de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture” by Israel was one of the acts which constitute the crime of genocide under international law.
In its conclusions, the UN committee took care to unequivocally condemn the Hamas attack of October 2023, and acknowledged the security challenges Israel faces.
But it also warned that violations of international law by one side did not justify the other side doing the same. Under the convention, to which Israel is a party, the prohibition on torture is absolute: it is not allowed under any circumstances.
