Thousands of Palestinians have been arbitrarily and secretly detained, tortured and ill-treated by Israeli authorities since the October 7 attack by Palestinian armed groups that triggered Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, according to a report released Wednesday by the United Nations human rights office. Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment continues throughout much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in increasing civilian deaths, maiming, injuries, displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Since October, thousands of Palestinians - including medical personnel, patients and residents fleeing the conflict, as well as suspected militants - have been taken from Gaza into Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded. Thousands more have been detained in the West Bank and Israel.
They have generally been held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention, access to a lawyer, or effective judicial review, according to the report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“The large number of Palestinian men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders have been detained since October 7, most of them without charges or trial and held in deplorable conditions,” the report says.
“Many of those detained and subsequently released have reported being subject to torture or other forms of ill-treatment, including severe beatings, electrocution, being forced to remain in stress positions for prolonged periods, or waterboarding” the report noted. “At least 53 detainees from Gaza and the West Bank have died in Israel since 7 October.”
The report finds that “conditions in military-run detention facilities appear to be worse, with widespread ill-treatment.” It says detainees report “they were held in cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers.” Many described in graphic detail various forms of torture and ill-treatment to which they were subjected. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.
In a statement accompanying the release of the report, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said the report raises concerns that Israel is committing “flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.”
“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 UN report found that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) detained thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly men and boys, but also some women and girls, and transferred them to detention centers and prisons in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
In a statement that covered hostages taken by Hamas as well as Palestinians detained by Israel, the authors of the Human Rights Office report said:
“Those taken into custody in Gaza, as well as in Israel, have been generally held in prolonged secret and incommunicado detention,” with no information provided to their families, “raising serious concerns of enforced disappearance.”
The authors said the Israeli military usually does not explain the basis for taking Palestinians into custody, “although it has in some cases alleged affiliation with Palestinian armed groups or their political wings.”
Israel has denied the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to all Palestinian detainees in its custody since October 7. The report says Palestinian armed groups have also prevented the ICRC from visiting hostages taken during the Hamas raid on southern Israel that day.
The 23-page report is based on interviews with Palestinians, released detainees and other victims and witnesses, civil society organizations, and Israeli and Palestinian government officials, among others. The report was shared with the governments of Israel and the State of Palestine "for factual comment".
The UN report also criticizes the Palestinian Authority for continuing “to carry out arbitrary detention and torture or other ill-treatment in the West Bank, reportedly principally to suppress criticism and political opposition.”
The report's authors describe the conditions in which detainees are held, the use of beatings, prolonged stress positions, and threats to extract confessions from those held on criminal charges. Accounts of released Gaza hostages in the report describe the conditions they endured while in captivity.
“Some described being beaten while being taken into Gaza, or seeing other hostages being beaten while in captivity. […] Others reported witnessing the sexual abuse of other hostages — both male and female,” the authors wrote.
“International humanitarian law protects all those being held, requiring their humane treatment and protection against all acts of violence or threats thereof,” High Commissioner Türk said.
“International law requires that all those deprived of their liberty be treated with humanity and dignity, and it strictly prohibits torture or other ill-treatment, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Secret, prolonged incommunicado detention may also amount to a form of torture.”
The UN human rights chief reiterated his call for the immediate release of all hostages still held in Gaza and for the release of all Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel.
The report comes as Israel's war in Gaza has claimed more than 39,000 lives, and as evidence mounts that Israeli government and military officials are responsible for widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the enclave.
These include collective punishment of civilians, use of starvation as a method of warfare, denial of humanitarian aid, indiscriminate killing of civilians, targeting of civilians, disproportionate attacks, forced displacement, torture, enforced disappearances and other atrocity crimes.
In May, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, announced that he had requested arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza. Arrest warrants are being sought for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel said in a report released in June that Israeli government and military authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during military operations and attacks in Gaza since October 7.
The Commission found that the Israeli authorities were responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare, murder or wilful killing, directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, forcible transfer, sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention and outrages upon personal dignity.
The Commission also found that the crimes against humanity of extermination, gender persecution of Palestinian men and boys, murder, forcible transfer, and torture and inhuman or cruel treatment were committed.
For more than nine months, an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe has been unfolding in Gaza, with people dying from widespread violence and starvation, and the threat of famine looming. Leading UN officials have called the situation in Gaza "apocalyptic," "hell on earth," "beyond catastrophic," and said that the humanitarian community is "running out of words to describe what is happening in Gaza".
According to Gaza health officials, more than 39,400 people have been killed and more than 91,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on the enclave since the war erupted in October. More than 10,000 others are feared buried under the rubble in Gaza and are presumed dead. Among the confirmed dead are at least 283 aid workers, 206 UN personnel, 500 health workers and 163 journalists.
The entire population of the Gaza Strip is experiencing acute hunger and is at risk of famine. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report for Gaza, released in June, shows that 96 percent of the population faces acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse, with nearly half a million people in catastrophic conditions.
The blockade of aid, the hostile environment created by the war - including attacks on aid workers - and the breakdown of civil order posed enormous challenges to any viable humanitarian response to the enormous needs of the population. The United Nations and non-governmental aid groups accuse Israel of closing most of the border crossings into Gaza - and preventing life-saving aid from reaching the more than 2 million people in dire need.
In a report on humanitarian access released on Tuesday, more than 20 aid agencies warned that intensified Israeli airstrikes in areas of Gaza where aid organizations are providing services, including Israeli-designated "humanitarian zones," as well as closed and dysfunctional crossings, have drastically hampered the ability to deliver life-saving supplies.
The report shines a light on the worsening access constraints faced by humanitarian agencies operating in the region and highlights the critical obstacles that have hindered effective aid delivery, including Israeli military operations, movement restrictions, and deteriorating public order.
It also reveals the devastating impact of the ongoing hostilities, including the deaths of aid workers, the destruction of essential infrastructure, and widespread displacement due to "evacuation orders".
International humanitarian law (IHL) requires Israel to ensure that the basic needs of the population of Gaza are met. Among other things, it must ensure that Gaza is supplied with sufficient water, food, medical supplies, and other basic necessities to enable the population to survive.
However, since Israel declared a full siege on the Gaza Strip on October 9, the amount of aid entering the enclave has never been sufficient to meet the needs on the ground. For more than nine months, Israel has failed to provide or even facilitate the delivery of essential supplies to the people of the besieged territory.
According to the UN, up to 1.9 million people - or 90 percent of the population - are internally displaced throughout the Gaza Strip, including people who have been repeatedly displaced - some as many as 10 times. More than 85 percent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or designated a "no-go zone" by Israeli forces, confining 1.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs) to about 15 percent of the tiny territory.
On Tuesday, UN agencies warned that the demolition of a critical water facility in Rafah in southern Gaza - another likely war crime - is increasing the risk of infectious diseases as people are forced to drink unsafe water while sanitation conditions continue to deteriorate.
“Until recently, that reservoir served thousands and thousands of internally displaced people who had sought refuge in Rafah in the area,” James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told journalists at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
“Now without it, vulnerable children and families are likely to be forced again increasingly to resort to unsafe water, so putting them again at all those risks that we see time after time, day after day in Gaza — dehydration, malnutrition, diseases,” he said.
The Israeli daily “Haaretz” reported Monday that the troops blew up the central reservoir “on the orders of the brigade commanders” but without receiving permission from the senior level of the Southern Command. It added that the incident was being investigated by Israel’s Military Police as “a suspected violation of international law.”
Elder said the destruction of the Canada Well reservoir “is yet another grim reminder of the assaults on families who already are in desperate need of water.”
“We have seen spikes in diarrhea, in skin infections — all due to a lack of access to hygiene and a lack of access to water,” he said, noting that people in emergencies require a minimum of 15 liters - almost 4 gallons - of water per person per day.
Now, the range of water availability in Gaza has been reduced to between 2 and 9 liters per person, per day, and some people are getting just a fraction of that, Elder said.
“Somehow, people are holding on, but of course, we are now in that deathly cycle whereby children are very malnourished. There is immense heat. There is [a] lack of water. There is a horrendous lack of sanitation, and that is the cycle,” he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports a surge in infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip. As of July 7, it has recorded nearly 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections, 577,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea, 107,000 of acute jaundice syndrome and 12,000 of bloody diarrhea. It also has recorded nearly 200,000 cases of scabies, lice, skin rashes, chicken pox and other illnesses.
The recent identification of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Gaza’s sewage system is of particular concern. Under prevailing catastrophic conditions in Gaza, there is a high risk of spread of this paralytic, deadly disease within the Palestinian enclave and across borders.
“Having a vaccine-derived polio virus in the sewage very likely means that it is out there somewhere in people,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said Tuesday. “It most likely is in the population, but that does not necessarily mean that we see an outbreak of cases.
“But of course, we need to be prepared. We need to be utterly prepared. And we need vaccinations, and we need vaccination campaigns,” he said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebteyesus has announced that the organization will be sending more than 1 million doses of polio vaccine to Gaza to avert the spread of the disease.
“While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected,” he said, adding that infants under 2 are especially vulnerable “because many have not been vaccinated over the nine months of conflict.”
Before Israel began its military offensive in Gaza, nearly the whole population of Gaza had been immunized against polio.
However, due to the impact of the conflict, “coverage of polio now is around 89 percent, down from around 99 percent before the conflict,” UNICEF’s Elder said. “Hence, there is an increased risk for children. Now, if the child gets the full course of the vaccine, then the risk of the child getting paralyzed by polio is negligible.
“This is why it is so critical that all children are immunized. But the mass displacement, the decimation of the health infrastructure, the tremendously insecure operating environment — they all make it much more difficult, hence putting more children at risk,” he said.
Cases of polio have declined by 99 percent since WHO launched its global polio eradication campaign in 1988.
WHO reports polio now is endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, more than 30 countries, including Egypt and Israel, are subject to outbreaks. The reemergence of polio tends to occur in areas of conflict or instability and within countries with poor health systems.
“We were very, very close to eradicating polio fully,” WHO spokesperson Lindmeier said. “As you know, wartime, unfortunately, creates the situation where it is very difficult to get that last mile. And it has been less than a mile that we needed to go.
“There are a few pockets around the world. Hopefully, Gaza will not become another one,” he said.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: Detention in the context of the escalation of hostilities in Gaza (October 2023-June 2024), UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), report, released July 31, 2024
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/opt/20240731-Thematic-report-Detention-context-Gaza-hostilities.pdf
Full text: oPt Gaza Humanitarian Snapshot #2: 13 - 29 July 2024, second report in a series issued by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Gaza, published July 30, 2024
https://www.care-international.org/resources/gaza-humanitarian-snapshot-2