Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 10
An internal UN report describes widespread abuse of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centres, including beatings, dog attacks, the prolonged use of stress positions and sexual assault.
The report was compiled by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) and is largely based on interviews of Palestinian detainees released at the Kerem Shalom crossing point since December, when UNRWA staff were present to provide humanitarian support.
The report, which has been circulated within the UN and seen by the Guardian, says that just over 1,000 detainees have been released since December. But it estimates that more than 4,000 men, women and children have been rounded up in Gaza since the start of the current conflict, triggered by Hamas raids into southern Israel on 7 October which killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.
Israel denies the abuse allegations, which it described as Hamas-inspired propaganda. It has named 12 UNRWA staff it claims took part in the 7 October attack, and claims that 450 of the agency’s 13,000 workers in Gaza are members of Hamas or other militant groups.
Their Israeli jailers, it alleges, “through beatings and other mistreatment and threats, sought to elicit operational information and forced confessions”.
The UNRWA report said that among the 1,002 detainees released since December at the Kerem Shalom crossing, there were 29 children as young as six (26 boys and three girls), 80 women and 21 UNRWA staff. Some had chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s or were cancer patients.
“Detainees reported being taken on trucks to large makeshift ‘military barracks’ housing 100-120 people each, where they were held, often for weeks at a time, in between periods of interrogation at a nearby location,” the UNRWA document said, in allegations first reported by the New York Times. It claims the worst abuse occurs in these detention and interrogation centres before the detainees are transferred to the Israeli prison system.
The UNRWA report says: “Methods of ill-treatment reported included physical beatings, forced stress positions for extended periods of time, threats of harm to detainees and their families, attacks by dogs, insults to personal dignity and humiliation such as being made to act like animals or getting urinated on, use of loud music and noises, deprivation of water, food, sleep and toilets, denial of the right to practice their religion (to pray) and prolonged use of tightly locked handcuffs causing open wounds and friction injuries.
The report included allegations of widespread sexual assault, although not rape. Women detainees reported being groped while blindfolded, and some male prisoners said they were beaten in the genitals.
“Another detainee reported being made to sit on an electrical probe, causing burns to his anus, the scars for which could still be seen weeks later,” the UNRWA report said. “He indicated that another detainee had also suffered the same treatment and died as a result of his infected wounds.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a blanket denial of the allegations in the UNRWA report.
Source: The Guardian
