Israeli troopers collect on the gate of the Sde Teiman army base, as individuals protest in help of the troopers’ interrogation over detainee abuse, July 29, 2024. | Picture credit score: AP
The UN human rights workplace issued a report on July 31 saying Palestinian detainees taken by Israeli authorities for the reason that Oct. 7 assaults have confronted waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electrical shocks, the discharge of canine and different types of torture and ill-treatment.
The detention report says Israel’s jail service was holding greater than 9,400 “safety detainees” as of the top of June, with some held in secret with out entry to legal professionals or respect for his or her authorized rights.
A abstract of the report, based mostly on interviews with former detainees and different sources, denounces a “staggering” variety of detainees – together with males, ladies, kids, journalists and human rights defenders – and says such practices increase issues about arbitrary detention.
“The testimonies collected by my workplace and different entities point out a sequence of atrocious acts, resembling waterboarding and the discharge of canine in opposition to detainees, amongst different acts, in flagrant violation of worldwide human rights legislation and worldwide humanitarian legislation,” stated the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in a press release.
The findings of the report, one of the crucial complete of its type, could possibly be utilized by Worldwide Legal Court docket prosecutors investigating crimes dedicated in reference to the Oct. 7 assaults and their aftermath, together with Israel’s ongoing brutal army marketing campaign in Gaza.
The report’s authors stated its contents have been shared with the Israeli authorities.
The report says the detainees have been taken in Gaza, Israel and the West Financial institution, and says Israel has offered no info on the destiny or whereabouts of many, including that the Worldwide Committee of the Pink Cross has been denied entry to services the place they’re being held.
“Detainees stated they have been saved in cage-like services, bare for lengthy intervals of time and in diapers. Their testimonies recounted being blindfolded for lengthy intervals, disadvantaged of meals, sleep and water, subjected to electrical shocks and burned with cigarettes,” a abstract of the report stated.
“Some detainees stated canine have been launched on them, others stated they have been waterboarded or had their fingers tied and hung from the ceiling,” she added. “Some men and women additionally spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.”
The report additionally says the Palestinian Authority, which administers elements of the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, additionally “continued to hold out arbitrary arrests and torture or different ill-treatment within the West Financial institution, apparently primarily to suppress criticism and political opposition.”
Learn additionally:Who was Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chief killed in Iran?
An Israeli army courtroom on Tuesday started an preliminary listening to for 9 troopers detained on what a protection lawyer stated have been allegations of sexual abuse of a Palestinian at Sde Teiman, a shadowy facility the place Israel has held prisoners from Gaza in the course of the struggle. The troopers’ detention sparked indignant protests from their supporters demanding their launch.
On Wednesday, the army courtroom prolonged the detention of eight Israeli suspects till Sunday.
The struggle in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s shock assault on southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 individuals and taking one other 250 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory operation has razed complete neighborhoods in Gaza and compelled round 80 p.c of the inhabitants to flee their houses. Gaza’s well being ministry says greater than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, with out distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its depend.
