by C. Alessandro Mauceri –
A number of Palestinians are being held by the Israeli authorities who are suffering serious violations that could amount to torture. This is what appears in the new United Nations report, according to “The impressive number of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders detained since October 7 , most of them without charge or trial and held in deplorable conditions. , together with reports of ill-treatment and torture and violations of due process guarantees, raise serious concerns about the arbitrary and punitive nature of such arrests and detentions.” This is what was announced by the head of the United Nations for Human Rights (OHCHR), Volker Türk.
“Certificates collected by my office and other organizations point to a series of horrific actions, such as waterboarding and the use of dogs on detainees, among other acts, in violation of international humanitarian law,” he said.
The report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights details the treatment of medical workers, patients and residents fleeing the conflict, as well as combatants they were seized from the sea, the West Bank and Israel, since terrorist attacks were led by Hamas. in southern Israel that provoked the war. The data revealed dozens of cases of Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli military facilities and prisons where they were locked up after October 7, 2023.
But the real number could be much higher. Family members “do not know whether the detainees are alive or dead,” the report’s authors said. Most of the male prisoners were removed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “usually by hand-handed and blind-sweating”.
“Many were arrested while sheltering in schools, hospitals and residential buildings, or at checkpoints when large numbers of Palestinians were moved from north to south Gaza,” the report said. “In most cases, men and teenagers were arrested, although women were also arrested, including a woman over 80 with Alzheimer’s disease, and girls with no apparent connection to armed groups.”
The OHCHR file is based on interviews with released Palestinian detainees, but also on analyzes carried out by the OHCHR office in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. According to Israeli medical staff, the wounded Gaza detainees “were kept in a field hospital set up in the Sde Teiman compound, where they were blindfolded all the time, their arms and their feet were shackled by hand to their beds, and they were fed straw.” In another prison in the Negev desert, a former prisoner said he was “often beaten in front of his son,” who was also detained. But these are not the only issues. In addition to those taken from Gaza, “thousands more” were held in the West Bank and Israel “and generally in secret,” as the report’s authors note. near
“Detainees said they were held in cage-like structures, stripped naked for long periods of time, wearing only diapers. Their testimonies described being hidden for a long time, without food, sleep and water, subjected to electric shocks and burned with cigarettes… Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender violence.”
According to the report, Israel did not provide any information about what happened or where many of the detainees were. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was denied access to the facilities where the detainees were held. Türk reiterated that “all Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel must be released.”
According to the OHCHR report, such mistreatment is “widespread,” especially in military detention facilities.
