Israeli military in spotlight over ‘incommunicado’ detention of Palestinians

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.

“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.

The development follows Monday’s announcement by the Israeli authorities that they were investigating a number of soldiers for allegedly abusing a Palestinian prisoner earlier this month at the Sde Teiman detention centre in the Negev desert.

Whistleblower insight

According to information from Israeli medical personnel and whistleblowers cited in the report, injured detainees from Gaza “were held at a field hospital established in the Sde Teiman compound, where they were blindfolded at all times, their arms and legs shackled to their beds, and they were fed through a straw”.

At another prison in the Negev desert, one former prisoner alleged that he had been “frequently beaten in front of his son” who was also detained. Ill-treatment was “widespread”, particularly in military-run detention facilities, the OHCHR report maintained.

Stripped naked

In addition to those taken from Gaza, “thousands more” have been detained in the West Bank and Israel “and generally in secret”, the report’s authors note.

“Detainees said they were held in cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers. Their testimonies told of prolonged blindfolding, deprivation of food, sleep and water, and being subjected to electric shocks and being burnt with cigarettes…Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.”

According to the report, Israel has also not provided information regarding the fate or whereabouts of many of those detained, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied access to facilities where they are held.

“International humanitarian law protects all those being held, requiring their humane treatment and protection against all acts of violence or threats thereof,” said UN human rights chief Volker Türk, who insisted that “all Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel must be released”.

Rights chief’s call

He added that international law “strictly prohibits torture or other ill-treatment, including rape and other forms of sexual violence”, while “secret, prolonged incommunicado detention may also amount to a form of torture”.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights also reiterated his call for the immediate release of all hostages still held in Gaza who are believed to number 116, of whom 42 are believed to have died, according to the Israeli authorities, as of 25 June.

The OHCHR report follows last month’s probe into the Israeli military’s bombing campaign of the enclave in which hundreds of people died after strikes on civilian targets including a school, refugee camp and market.

The latest report’s findings are based on monitoring and interviews conducted by the OHCHR office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The contributors in addition to Palestinian released detainees have included witnesses of violations, as well as information from human rights organizations and other civil society organizations, governmental entities - both Palestinian and Israeli - and other UN agencies, as well as information available through media and social media. Both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities received the report, OHCHR said.