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.[1][2] As of 2018, Amnesty reported that LGBT people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment.[2]
The Palestinian Authority had reportedly practiced torture in the Palestinian territories over the years. In 1995, Azzam Rahim, a naturalized American citizen, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. He was subsequently taken to a prison in Jericho where he was tortured and killed.[3] Rahim's family attempted to sue the PA and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, but the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against them.[4]
In 2007, Amnesty International found that "Torture [by the Palestine Authority] of detainees remained widespread. Seven detainees died in custody. Unlawful killings, including possible extrajudicial executions, continued to be reported."[5]
More than 100 cases of torture by Palestinian security services were reported in 2010. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said: "The reports of torture by Palestinian security services keep rolling in. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad are well aware of the situation. They need to reverse this rampant impunity and make sure that those responsible are prosecuted."[6]
At least six Palestinians died under torture in PA prisons. According to a report by the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain, the PA has used torture on a systematic basis for years. Methods include beatings with cables, pulling out nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and the threat of rape. The report went on to say "Every one of those detainees has been subject to humiliating and degrading treatment and stayed in cells for more than 10 days. The analysis shows that an astonishing 95 percent of the detainees were subjected to severe torture, others feeling the detrimental effects on their health for varying periods."[7] The shabeh, which involves detainees being handcuffed and bound in stress positions for longs stretches of time, is the most widely used form of torture.[8]
Human Rights Watch reported 147 cases of torture by Hamas in the West Bank during 2011 and that none of the perpetrators had been prosecuted "despite consistent allegations of severe abuse." It further stated that "Some men said they had needed medical care due to torture and sought to obtain medical records as evidence that they had been tortured, but that hospital officials refused to provide them. Hamas’s rival in the West Bank, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, arrests and detains Palestinians arbitrarily, including Hamas members or sympathizers, and similarly subjects detainees to torture and abuse."[9]
In 2012, after allegedly selling a house in Hebron to a Jewish family, Muhammad Abu Shahala was arrested by the Palestinian Authority, tortured into a confession, and sentenced to death.[10][bettersourceneeded]
In another report, Human Rights Watch "documents cases in which [Palestinian] security forces tortured, beat, and arbitrarily detained journalists, confiscated their equipment, and barred them from leaving the West Bank and Gaza." HRW also reported an incident in which "the Hamas Ministry of Interior summoned a journalist who published an article on torture by Hamas authorities in secret detention facilities, threatened to take legal action against him if he did not publish an apology for the article, and warned him to correct his 'biased' reporting."[11]
State of Palestine
While the State of Palestine’s ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on 29 December 2017, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Hamas security in Gaza continued using torture and other ill-treatment.[2]
In 2018, The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) received 285 allegations of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees held by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and by Hamas forces Gaza.[2]
Also in 2018, the Human Rights Watch published that both Palestinian authorities and Hamas routinely arrest and torture opponents and critics, in what have been described as “parallel police states”.[12]
Hamza Howidy, a Palestinian from Gaza, reported being arrested and tortured for protesting against Hamas multiple times.[13]
Practices on minorities and foreigners
Israelis
In 2017, Israel sued Palestinian administration for reportedly arresting and torturing fifty Arab citizens of Israel over the period of 1990s and early 2000s.[14]
In October 2000, some Palestinians started to beat some Israeli soldiers who had accidentally entered the Palestinian territories. These Palestinians were later arrested.[15]
Palestinian LGBT community
As of 2018, Amnesty reported that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment.[2]
Palestinian converts to Judaism and Christianity
In one case in 2019, it was reported that Palestinian police arrested and had badly beaten two Palestinians in Hebron, who had converted to Judaism.[16] The two, a man in his fifties and his son, received injuries including burns on arms and legs. The case took place in October 2019.[16]
The Palestinian National Authority, commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine, is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over West Bank areas "A" and "B" as a consequence of the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority controlled the Gaza Strip prior to the Palestinian elections of 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, when it lost control to Hamas; the PA continues to claim the Gaza Strip, although Hamas exercises de facto control. Since January 2013, the Palestinian Authority has used the name "State of Palestine" on official documents, although the United Nations continues to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the "representative of the Palestinian people".
This article describes the use of torture since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which prohibited it. Torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries. However, it is still used by many governments.
Torture in Bahrain refers to the violation of Bahrain's obligations as a state party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and other international treaties and disregard for the prohibition of torture enshrined in Bahraini law.
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism or rebellion, to control illegal immigration, or to otherwise protect the ruling regime.
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.
Human rights in Egypt are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt under the various articles of Chapter 3. The country is also a party to numerous international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, the state of human rights in the country has been criticized both in the past and the present, especially by foreign human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. As of 2022, Human Rights Watch has declared that Egypt's human rights crises under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is "one of its worst ... in many decades", and that "tens of thousands of government critics, including journalists, peaceful activists, and human rights defenders, remain imprisoned on abusive 'terrorism' charges, many in lengthy pretrial detention." International human rights organizations, such as the aforementioned HRW and Amnesty International, have alleged that as of January 2020, there are some 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. Other complaints made are of authorities harassing and detaining "relatives of dissidents abroad" and use of "vague 'morality' charges to prosecute LGBT people, female social media influencers, and survivors of sexual violence". The Egyptian government has frequently rejected such criticism, denying that any of the prisoners it holds are political prisoners.
The future of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is considered central to progress in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. Cases of prison sentences include the charges of terrorism or being a member of an "illegal terrorist organization", such as Hamas or prior to the Oslo Accords the Palestine Liberation Organization, but according to some accounts also by political activism such as raising a Palestinian flag.
Hana Shalabi is a Palestinian prisoner in Israel, held in administrative detention.
The Battle of Gaza was a military conflict between Fatah and Hamas that took place in the Gaza Strip from 10 to 15 June 2007. It was a prominent event in the Fatah–Hamas conflict, centered on the struggle for power after Fatah lost the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. The battle resulted in the dissolution of the unity government and the de facto division of the Palestinian territories into two entities: the West Bank governed by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and the Gaza Strip governed by Hamas. Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip, while Fatah officials were either taken as prisoners, executed, or expelled. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that at least 161 people were killed and more than 700 were wounded during the fighting.
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge, and Battle of the Withered Grain, was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since 2007. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother's Keeper, in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in over two thousand deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians. This includes a total of six Israeli civilians who were killed as a result of the conflict.
The Palestinian Security Services (PSS) are the armed forces and intelligence agencies of the State of Palestine. They comprise several institutions, notably the Security Forces and the Police. The President of the Palestinian National Authority is Commander-in-Chief of the Palestinian Forces.
Aside from its use of political violence in pursuit of its goals, the Palestinian political and military organization Hamas has been widely criticised for a variety of reasons, including its alleged use of hate speech by its representatives, alleged use of human shields and child combatants as part of its military operations, alleged restriction of political freedoms within the Gaza Strip, and alleged human rights abuses.
Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip has been practiced by the Hamas Administration since it assumed power in 2007. The punishment is given for offenses such as crimes against Islamic law, land sales to Israelis, and treason. The Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip inherited the Palestinian National Authority code of law, which included the death penalty for several kinds of offenses, but while the Palestinian administration in Ramallah has refrained from executing capital punishments, death sentences are periodically performed by Hamas.
Israeli torture in the occupied territories refers to the use of torture and systematic degrading practices on Palestinians detained by Israeli forces in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The practice, routine for decades, was eventually reviewed by the Supreme Court of Israel in 1999, which found that "coercive interrogation" of Palestinians had been widespread, and deemed it unlawful, though permissible in certain cases. Torture is also practiced by the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The 2019 Gaza economic protests, also called the We Want to Live protests and the 14th March movement, were a series of protests held in the Gaza Strip in response to high costs of living and tax hikes.
Crime in the State of Palestine is present in various forms which include theft, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, burglary, human trafficking and terrorism.
Events in the year 2020 in State of Palestine.
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.
NGOs and human rights groups have alleged violence against Palestinian journalists for decades. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Authority (PA), the IDF, and others have all been accused of utilizing violence against Palestinian journalists, which has resulted in Palestine being ranked 156th out of 180 countries in the 2023 Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index. Freedom House has stated that in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, journalists are surveilled and threatened by both Palestinian and Israeli authorities. In 2022, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom found 605 violations against media freedom, with 69% attributed to Israel.
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.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
