During the early occupation years
Reports of torture as a means of extracting confessions arguably began early in the occupation, on evidence for the first decade. In June 1977 the Sunday Times claimed torture was used against the Arab population of the occupied territories. In early 1978 an employee of the US Consulate in East Jerusalem, Alexandra Johnson, [lower-alpha 2] sent two cables detailing evidence Israeli authorities were systematically using torture on West Bank suspects in Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and the Russian compound of Jerusalem. Early reports indicated detainees were stripped naked and subject for long periods to cold showers or cold air ventilation. People were hung from meat hooks in Hebron and Ramallah. She concluded torture was applied at three rising levels of maltreatment, (a) level one: daily beatings with fists and sticks; (b) level two: alternate immersions of the victim in hot and cold water, beating of genitals and interrogation about twice daily over several hours; (c) level three: rotating teams of interrogators working on a nude person under detention by applying electrical devices, high frequency sonic noise, refrigeration, prolonged hanging by the hands or feet, and inserting objects into their penises or rectums. This last level was used on those who refused at earlier levels to denounce other Palestinians. At the time, Israel described these allegations as "fantastic horror stories." In private, however, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered a curtailing of the use of violent interrogation techniques, after which the allegations of torture decreased for the next several years. The hiatus on torture ended in the early 1980s. [12]
78% of a sample of 40 detainees in 1985 said they had been sexually molested, and 67% stated they had been humiliated on religious grounds. Former inmates of the secret detention centre Camp 1391, whose existence is not even officially acknowledged, claim sexual harassment, even rape, forms part of the interrogation techniques. The first important study was conducted by the first Palestinian NGO, al-Haq, in 1986, which focused on practices at the Al Fara'a Detention Centre.
During the First Intifada and onwards
Other techniques include shabeh, a practice 76% of the Israel public (1998) thought a form of torture, but only 27% opposed its use against Palestinians. This consists of being forced to sit on a very small chair, with a filthy hood over one's head, as blaring music is drummed into one's ears. It could, as with one woman, last up to 10 days, night and day; also included among torture techniques was the beating of the bare soles of detainees' feet (falaqa), or subjecting them, while deprived of sleep, to endless lectures on themes like: "All Arabs are Bedouin, and Bedouin are Saudis, so Palestinians should go back to Saudi Arabia, where they came from. You don't belong here." [lower-alpha 3] Blindfolding is used so that the suspect can never anticipate when he is to be struck. In the First Intifada, other than prolonged beatings, people, including children, could be smeared with vomit or urine, be confined in a "coffin", be suspended by the wrists; be denied food and water or access to toilets, or be threatened to have their sisters, wives or mothers raped. Methods, including torture, practiced also on Palestinian children were reported to persist with Amnesty International stating in 2018 that though over 1,000 complaints have been filed regarding these practices since 2001, "no criminal investigations were opened." [lower-alpha 4]
Human rights organizations have reported specifically on the torture of minors by Israel. During the Human Rights Watch reported in 2002 that over 300 Palestinian minors had been tortured through beating, deprivation of sleep and dousing with freezing water. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported similarly in 2001 that Palestinian minors had their heads covered and subject to severe beatings and other abuse. B'Tselem concluded that these reports were "not isolated cases or uncommon conduct by certain police officers, but methods of torture adopted at the police station." Upon filing complaints with Israeli officials, B'Tselem reports that "the authorities have made no serious effort to address the root of the problem. Similarly, they have made no attempt to prosecute the violent police officers." [23] [24]
One major case, in which 20 men from Beita and Huwara were taken from their homes, gagged and bound hand and foot and then had their limbs broken with clubs, eventually reached the Israeli Supreme Court. [lower-alpha 5] In 2017, the alleged torture of Fawzi al-Junaidi, a 16 year old Palestinian boy, in Israeli detention drew media spotlight. [27] A roadside bomb in 2019 leading to the death of an Israeli girl triggered a manhunt by the Shin Bet where up to 50 Palestinians were rounded up and reportedly subjected to some form of torture. [28] 3 of the alleged suspects were hospitalised, one of them with kidney failure and 11 broken ribs while another was "nearly unrecognisable to his wife when he was wheeled into a courtroom". [29]
Such torture is not thought to be very effective. A West Bank member of Hamas gave evidence under torture implicating himself and that organization in the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers. The extorted confession turned out to be false. Recourse to Israeli courts to obtain recompense and rehabilitation for the psychological damage caused by being tortured are rarely conceded and are exceptional. Financial settlements were given for cases in the 1980s and 1990s, but only if the victim underwrote a clause which absolved the state of Israeli of declaring that the plaintiff had been a victim of torture.
The Israel Security Agency, better known by the acronyms Shabak or Shin Bet, is Israel's internal security service. Its motto is "Magen veLo Yera'e". The Shin Bet's headquarters are located in northwest Tel Aviv, north of Yarkon Park.
Hooding is the placing of a hood over the entire head of a prisoner. Hooding is widely considered to be a form of torture; one legal scholar considers the hooding of prisoners to be a violation of international law, specifically the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, which demand that persons under custody or physical control of enemy forces be treated humanely. Hooding can be dangerous to a prisoner's health and safety. It is considered to be an act of torture when its primary purpose is sensory deprivation during interrogation; it causes "disorientation, isolation, and dread." According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hooding is used to prevent a person from seeing, to disorient them, to make them anxious, to preserve their torturer's anonymity, and to prevent the person from breathing freely.
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The state of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is determined by Palestinian as well as Israeli policies, which affect Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories both directly and indirectly, through their influence over the Palestinian Authority (PA). Based on The Economist Democracy Index this state is classified as an authoritarian regime.
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The Landau Commission was a three-man Commission set up by the Israeli Government in 1987 following a long-running scandal over the deaths of two Palestinian prisoners in custody and the wrongful conviction of a Circassian IDF officer. The Commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, found that the GSS interrogators routinely used physical force during the interrogation of prisoners and then committed perjury at subsequent trials. In its conclusion, approved by Cabinet in November 1987, it lay down guidelines for the use of a "moderate measure of physical pressure". The details of the recommended methods were described in the classified appendix to the report. In 1994 the UN Committee Against Torture stated: "The Landau Commission Report, permitting as it does 'moderate physical pressure' as a lawful mode of interrogation, is completely unacceptable to this Committee."
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The Al-Moskobiya, Moscobiyeh, Muscovite or Moscovia Detention Centre is an Israeli detention and interrogation facility and prison more commonly known as The Russian Compound, located in West Jerusalem. The center is used to interrogate Palestinian detainees and prisoners from a variety of age groups, including children. The Palestinian NGO Addameer has alleged that harsh methods of torture are used there.
Torture in the State of Palestine refers to the use of torture and systematic degrading practices on civilians detained by Palestinian forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As of 2018, Amnesty reported that LGBT people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment.
Since the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war on October 7, 2023, Israel has carried out mass arrests and detentions of Palestinians. Thousands have been arrested in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel, based on alleged militant activity, offensive social media postings, or arbitrarily.
During the Israel–Hamas war, a series of exchanges were made between Israel and Hamas to exchange militant-held hostages for Palestinian prisoners. The negotiations were brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, and were part of a broader temporary ceasefire agreement. In Israel the deal was called "Operation Heaven's Door", and the subprogram for the rehabilitation of foreign citizens was called "Operation "Friendly Hand".
According to the United States Department of State and international, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, there have been credible reports of human rights violations committed against Palestinians by Israel, some amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
During the 2023-24 Israel-Hamas war, some Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been raped, assaulted by Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. The IDF has been accused of committing acts of gender-based violence, war crimes and crimes against humanity in keeping with the recognition of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that sexual violence is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
During the Israel–Hamas war, the systematic torture of Palestinians by Israel was reported by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and several Israeli nonprofit organizations. Israel was accused of sexual violence against both male and female Palestinian detainees, as well as torturing United Nations staff in order to extract forced confessions. There were further reports of the Israeli torture of accused militants. In response, Shin Bet officials stated they conduct militant interrogations within the Israeli legal framework, which allows torture only under specific circumstances.
