By Daniel Johnson
A new UN report published Wednesday into alleged abuses carried out against thousands of Palestinians detained by the Israeli authorities since war erupted in Gaza last October has documented a range of serious violations that may amount to torture.
“The staggering number of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders detained since 7 October, most of them without charge or trial and held in deplorable conditions, along with reports of ill-treatment and torture and violation of due process guarantees, raises serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and the fundamentally punitive nature of such arrests and detention,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk, whose Office released the report.
Waterboarding claim
“The testimonies gathered by my Office and other entities indicate a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees, amongst other acts, in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” he said.
The report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) details the treatment of medical staff, patients and residents fleeing the conflict, as well as captured fighters taken from the enclave, the occupied West Bank and Israel, since Hamas-led terror attacks on southern Israel sparked the war.
At least 53 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since 7 October.
“They do not know if those detained are alive or dead,” said the report’s authors, recounting the experience of family members whose mainly male relatives have been taken away “usually shackled and blindfolded” by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from various parts of Gaza. “They have not heard anything about their fate or wellbeing since then.”
Unlikely targets
Of those arrested in Gaza – including staff from the UN agency providing assistance to Palestine refugees, UNRWA – “many were taken into custody while sheltering in schools, hospitals and residential buildings, or at checkpoints during the forced displacement of large numbers of Palestinians from north to south Gaza,” the report notes. “In most cases, men and adolescent boys were detained, although women, including a woman over 80 years of age and with Alzheimer’s disease and girls without any apparent link to armed groups, have also been detained.”
The OHCHR dossier was compiled by means of interviews with released Palestinian detainees as well as monitoring and analysis conducted by the OHCHR office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
In harm’s way
It contains testimonies of men held in Gaza by the IDF, including UNRWA staff members who claim that they were “forced by IDF soldiers to enter tunnels and buildings in Gaza ahead of soldiers”.
Other testimonies point to Palestinians being detained “en masse for screening” by the Israeli military, or for remaining in areas covered by IDF evacuation orders. “Many of the released detainees, who all claim and appear to be civilians, said they were interrogated without legal representation, about locations of tunnels and/or hostages,” OHCHR said.
More to come…
