The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has issued a blistering report that lays out exactly how Israel has created a terrifying system of torture against Palestine. 50 conclusions and recommendations point to what the world has been seeing broadcast live from Palestinians during the course of Israel’s genocide. Ultimately, CAT concludes that since October 2023 Israel has a:
de facto State policy of organised and widespread torture and ill-treatment.
And, that torture is:
reaching unprecedented levels and carried out with near-total impunity.
Israel has total impunity in its genocide of Palestine
CAT’s report was an extraordinary and devastating indictment of the Israeli occupation’s behaviour in the occupied Palestinian territory. It describes a system of abuse so widespread and entrenched that it amounts to a direct assault on basic human dignity.
The Committee begins by stating that “the disproportionality of the State Party’s response” to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, is “of grave concern”.
The entire framework of human rights rests on the “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” But the Israeli regime, once again, argues the torture convention does not apply to it. However, the UN rejected Israel’s attempt to exempt itself from anti-torture rules in Gaza and the West Bank, stating that the Convention:
applies to all territory under the jurisdiction of the State Party.
“Israel’ does not even provide Palestinians with the most basic of legal protections
The report then looks at the reality on the ground. The Committee paints a grim picture. It notes Palestinians arrested by Israeli occupation forces are not guaranteed the most basic legal protections. People are held without being told their rights in a language they do not understand. Some are pressured to sign papers “in Hebrew, despite not speaking the language”. Access to a lawyer can be blocked for long periods. Meeting a judge can be delayed far “in excess of international standards” . Medical checks, which should detect injuries from abuse, are “frequently cursory”.
All of these are fundamental safeguards designed to prevent torture. According to the Committee, the Israeli occupation is breaching them all.
The report is also alarmed by the occupation’s use of administrative detention. Under Israeli military orders, Palestinians can be held for up to six months at a time, without trial or charge, renewable indefinitely. The Committee states that information before it shows “an unprecedentedly widespread use of administrative detention,” including:
allegations of collective punishment through mass arbitrary detentions and the denial of legal safeguards.
Apartheid legal system
Israeli settlers are exempt from administrative detention, even though settlers live in the same territory where Palestinians are subjected to these military orders. This is an apartheid, two-tier legal system. Detainees are routinely held on secret evidence they and their lawyers cannot see. Military judges, the report says, “lack the necessary information” to assess the intelligence used to justify detention. Palestinians are then often moved “to the territory of the State Party (‘Israel’),” violating international humanitarian law.
There is concern about the extensive allegations of ill-treatment and torture. These include electrocution, sexual and gender-based violence, stress positions, medical negligence and even operations without anaesthetic, all of which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The abnormally high number of Palestinian deaths in custody, since October 7, 2023, are also highlighted. Although autopsies indicate torture, malnutrition, and denial of medical care, there have been virtually no prosecutions.
CAT also details abuses under the Unlawful Combatants Law, a law ‘Israel’ invokes to arrest large numbers of Palestinians from Gaza. Individuals, including vulnerable people- older persons, disabled people, pregnant people, people with chronic illnesses, and even children – have been detained “on the basis of real or perceived group characteristics,” without meaningful individual review. Many have been completely cut off from the outside world. ‘Israel’ has “refused to acknowledge deprivation of liberty or provide information regarding their fate or whereabouts”. This places detainees:
effectively outside of the protection of the law – a practice amounting to enforced disappearance.
Palestinian prisoners have been starved to death by ‘Israel’
Then the report turns to prison conditions. Prison facilities “remain severely overcrowded.” More than “85 per cent” of all detainees are held on remand or without charges. Even by Israel’s own numbers, very few have actually been convicted of anything. Conditions have “severely deteriorated”. CAT references statements by Israeli occupation’s National Security Minister, Ben-Gvir, as evidence of:
a deliberate State policy of collective punishment.
“Security prisoners” are kept in their cells “for up to 23 hours per day,” at times “for days on end”. There are no “adequate hygiene facilities, electricity, running water.” Cells have “poor sanitary conditions,” bad airflow, and sometimes no natural light. Some detainees are kept “in restraints at all times”. Family contact has been cut off. The Committee notes that “all in-person visits” , including those from family and the International Committee of the Red Cross continue to be prohibited, while phone calls face “heavy restrictions”.
Then there is the food situation. The Israeli occupation’s own High Court ruled that the state had not ensured detainees “have access to adequate nutrition”. Many prisoners:
have lost excessive amounts of weight, which, in some cases, has contributed to their deaths in custody.
Some prisoners are forced to share meals or are given food that is simply “inedible”. There have also been many deaths in custody linked to starvation.
These are all conclusions in a formal UN torture investigation. Taken together, they describes an entire system where Palestinians are detained without charge, without evidence, without lawyers, without sunlight, without family, without proper food, and often without confirmation that they are alive.
Murderous Israel
It is a system where Israel still refuses to criminalise torture in line with the Convention, and where the UN finds that even previous recommendations, on medical checks, solitary confinement, administrative detention, and allegations of torture, have seen “no action”.
These are not isolated failures. They are the direct result of the Zionist regime’s laws, policies, and official decisions. This is the picture of ‘Israel’ that the UN Committee Against Torture has put on record. It is a system of abuse, of “collective punishment”, “enforced disappearance”, and “arbitrary detentions”. This system denies Palestinians any basic safeguards, and is designed by the Israeli regime to create as much suffering as possible. In a system where the crime of torture is not even recognised in law, Palestinians remain trapped in a regime of systematic abuse.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.
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