Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Israel.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Israel. Some of
these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are
unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate
their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Israel U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/israel-west-bank-and-gaza/
[accessed 25 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Authorities
continued to state the ISA held detainees in isolation only in extreme cases
and when there was no alternative option, and that the ISA did not use
isolation as a means of augmenting interrogation, forcing a confession, or
punishment. An independent Office of the Inspector for Complaints against ISA
Interrogators in the Ministry of Justice handled complaints of misconduct and
abuse in interrogations. In
non-security-related cases, ISA interrogation rooms are equipped with
closed-circuit cameras, and only supervisors appointed by the Ministry of
Justice have access to real-time audiovisual feeds. Supervisors are required
to report to the comptroller any irregularities they observe during interrogations. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Physical
Conditions: Local human rights organizations reported Palestinian security
prisoners (those convicted or suspected of nationalistically motivated
violence) often faced more restrictive conditions than prisoners
characterized as criminals. Restrictive conditions included increased
incidence of administrative detention, restricted family visits,
ineligibility for temporary furloughs, and solitary confinement. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES The government
stated it used separate detention only when a detainee threatened himself or
others and authorities had exhausted other options–or in some cases during
interrogation, to prevent disclosure of information. In such cases
authorities maintained the detainee had the right to meet with International
Committee of the Red Cross representatives, IPS personnel, and medical
personnel, if necessary. According to the government, the IPS did not hold
Palestinian detainees in separate detention punitively or to induce
confessions. Amnesty Researcher
Who Sicced Hamas on to Peace Activists Had Personal
Experience With Hamas Ill-Treatment David Lange, Israellycool, 12 April 2020 [accessed 12 April
2020] Amnesty
International is calling on the Hamas security forces to halt their crackdown
against peaceful Palestinian protesters and to investigate reports that
numerous people have been physically assaulted before being detained and
tortured. The week-long
crackdown (see timeline below), the most severe for more than a decade, has
been targeted at those protesting against the cost of living in the Gaza
Strip, as well as local journalists, activists and human rights workers. Why Are
Palestinians Dying in Hamas Prisons? Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, 2
March 2020 www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15664/palestinians-hamas-prisons [accessed 2 March
2020] The families' calls
for launching investigations into the death of their sons while in Hamas
detention have been ignored not only by Hamas, but also by the international
community, human rights organizations and media. Al-Sa'afeen's mother emphasized that the Israelis treat
Palestinians much better than Hamas does. "When the Jews arrest someone,
they contact his family to say they are holding him... But Hamas refused to
provide us with any information about the detention of my son or his health
condition.... We told [Hamas] that he's sick and needs medicine, but they
refused to give him any treatment. Until today, we don't know why my son was
arrested." When Palestinians die
in Palestinian prisons, the murders are presumably regarded as the handiwork
of supposedly savage Arabs, who are -- with racist contempt -- held to a
lower standard of conduct than Westerners, and therefore regarded as unworthy
of human rights, accountable governance, due process
or equal justice under the law. They are evidently
considered "just" Palestinian families complaining about brutal
torture in Palestinian prisons -- so international human rights organizations
do not even notice them. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 17 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? Israeli border
communities receive occasional rocket and artillery fire from Syria and the
Gaza Strip. Israeli security forces and civilians also face the ongoing
threat of small-scale terrorist attacks, most often involving stabbings or
vehicular assaults. Human rights groups have sometimes accused police of
using deadly force against stone throwers or perpetrators of stabbing and
vehicular attacks when they did not pose a lethal threat. The Supreme Court
banned torture in a 1999 ruling, but said physical coercion might be
permissible during interrogations in cases involving an imminent threat.
Human rights organizations accuse the authorities of continuing to use some
forms of physical abuse and other measures such as isolation, sleep
deprivation, psychological threats and pressure, painful binding, and
humiliation. Mohammad Safi, lost
his sight in Hamas torture chambers Imad Freij,
WAFA - Palestinian News & Info Agency, RAMALLAH, 11 April 2019 english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=QXDj05a109088977107aQXDj05 [accessed 19 May
2019] Safi’s brother,
Ahmad, wrote on his Facebook page that Mohammad was summoned five times to
appear at the Hamas-run Home Security Office in the north of Gaza because of
his activities with the protest movement. Every time he would go in, he would
be kept for five hours and then get released and told to go home until the
next time he will be summoned. The last time he
was summoned on March 19, he was held for three days in the cells and
brutally beaten and tortured. When he was released, he had a nervous
breakdown and had lost sight in his left eye, according to Rami Aman, a journalist acquainted with Safi’s conditions. The UN, the
"State of Palestine" and the Torture of Women Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, 15
January 2019 www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13561/palestinians-women-torture [accessed 15 January
2019] The torture,
according to Jbara, included pouring cold water on
her face, solitary confinement for several days, strip-search, sleep deprivation, lengthy hours of interrogation and
verbal abuse. "The first
stages were the worst," Jbara told the
Palestinian Wattan TV station. "They
interrogated me for several hours, without taking into consideration that I
felt sick. They moved me from one office to another. I saw a number of
detainees who were blindfolded and handcuffed. The interrogators were pouring
cold water on their faces and some of the detainees were lying on the floor.
It was a horrifying experience for me." Jbara also said that the
Palestinian interrogators threatened to take her three children away from her.
"They used my children to blackmail me," she reported. The
interrogators apparently also threatened her mother, her sisters and her with
sexual assault. "I'm now in a very bad health condition," she said.
"I even have difficulty walking." Palestinian recounts
torture by PA for helping Israel to thwart terror attacks TOI Staff, 13
December 2018 www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-recounts-pa-torture-for-helping-to-thwart-terror-attacks/ [accessed 16
December 2018] In a rare scene, a
Palestinian man this week attended a Knesset meeting and described torture he
was subjected to while in the Palestinian Authority’s custody for
collaborating with Israel and preventing terror attacks. “They take you to a room and have you work
in their construction, pick up five, seven cinder blocks and go up to the
fifth floor,” he said. “On all the stairs there are Palestinian soldiers. If you
take a break, they hit you. You go up and back down again. They open the
sewage and tell you to go down there.” Abbas and Hamas use
systematic torture to crush dissent – Human Rights Watch Times of Israel, 23
October 2018 [accessed 23 October
2018] Two Authorities,
One Way, Zero Dissent - Arbitrary Arrest and Torture Under the Palestinian
Authority and Hamas Human Rights
Watch,23 October 2018 [accessed 23 October
2018] In a 149-page
report based on interviews with 147 witnesses, Human Rights Watch detailed a
common method of abuse and torture known as shabeh
— used both by the PA and Hamas — in which detainees are placed in painful
physical positions for lengthy periods of time. Such practices cause distress
and trauma to detainees, while often leaving “little or no trace on the
body,” the report said. Shabeh techniques include
forcing detainees into squats, powerfully stretching their arms above or
behind them, and leaving them standing or sitting in child-sized chairs for
hours on end. In one example from
Gaza, “a PA civil servant, arrested after a friend tagged him in a Facebook
post calling for protests on the electricity crisis, spent most of his days
in the Internal Security’s Gaza City detention center subjected to positional
abuse… causing him to feel ‘severe pain in my kidneys and spine’ and as if
his neck would ‘break’ and his ‘body is tearing up inside,'” the report said. In the West Bank, a
detained journalist had his hands tied by rope to the ceiling of a holding
room while officers “slowly pulled the rope to apply pressure to his arms,
which caused him to feel so much pain that he had to ask an officer to pull
his pants up after he used the toilet because he could not do it himself.” NIS 1 million
deducted from PA transfers over torture Arutz Sheva
Staff, 14 August 2018 www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250509 [accessed 15 August
2018] Israel garnishes
Palestinian Authority taxes to pay legal fees for those illegally jailed,
tortured, in PA. Israel's law
enforcement agencies have decided to order the deduction of over a million
shekels from the Palestinian Authority's (PA) tax revenues, Israel Public
Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) reported.
The money will cover the medical expenses of PA collaborators who were
tortured by the PA's security services, as well as for the compensation they
demanded. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, the collaborators'
attorney Barak Kedem said, "A year ago, the
Jerusalem District Court ruled that the PA illegally jailed and tortured 52
men and women who were suspected of collaborating with Israel. Not long ago,
it was decided that the PA should pay the collaborators' legal fees, which
total 1 million shekel. As expected, the PA refused. We ended up garnishing,
because the PA did not want to pay." "The court heard testimonies of people who underwent very difficult
torture in the PA's basements, and ruled that these things were done
illegally, and are a crime which deserves compensation. Now the court
has to decide how much compensation each person will receive. One person's
apartment was stolen, one person is now 100% mentally ill, another is
neurologically ill, and we need to do the math." Palestinian
Prisoners’ Rights Advocate Speaks on His Torture and Abuse by PA Security International Middle
East Media Center IMEMC News, Ramallah, 17 June 2018 [accessed 17 June
2018] Laith Abu Zeyad, a longtime Palestinian prisoners’ rights advocate
and a staff member with Amnesty International in occupied Palestine, was one
of over 40 Palestinians – mostly youth – seized on Wednesday night, 13 June,
during a march to lift the Palestinian Authority’s sanctions on Gaza. He was
subject not only to political detention but to physical torture and abuse by
PA security after he attended the march as an observer with Amnesty. “Then I saw men in civilian clothes, I think
they were security forces. They were taking a demonstrator and beating him on
the way… and they were punching and kicking while dragging him away towards Manara,” said Abu Zeyad in a
testimony provided to Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner
Solidarity Network. “Then the most
violent incident I witnessed, when they brought in 21 year old Haitham Siyaj: what I saw was
that there were 4 police men beating someone outside with batons, he was
without a shirt/ I heard loud screaming, and a woman was trying to shout at
them to leave him, saying that he is her relative. They pushed the woman
away, and then the man was brought into the bus, I recognized he was Haitham Siyaj. They pushed him
on the floor, he landed on his face, and then two police officers in uniform
started beating him with batons on his back. Pro-Palestinian
Human Rights Organizations Shaft Palestinians and Human Rights Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute
International Policy Council, 21 May 2018 www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12337/palestinians-human-rights-organizations [accessed 23 May
2018] These suspected
"collaborators," after their abduction by the Palestinian Police, were
imprisoned in the PA's dungeons and subjected to unspeakable torture. In
their testimony before the court, the victims described brutal beatings,
broken teeth, sexual assault, exposure to extreme heat and cold, being forced
to sit on broken glass bottles, being hung repeatedly in various positions,
and "medical treatment" by the Palestinian Authority's prison
doctors that included injections of urine directly into their veins. In many
cases, suspected collaborators were executed outright; other times, they were
tortured to death and their family members raped and tortured. Even infants
were not spared. These methods remain in force; this is how the Palestinian
Authority deals with anyone suspected of cooperating with Jews: Death or
torture. During the trial,
attorney for the Palestinian Authority changed their defense. First, they
denied any involvement; later admitted that their police force had indeed
"made arrests." They also tried to claim that due process had been
adhered to throughout the period of incarceration. A few months ago,
Justice Drori found the Palestinian Authority
directly responsible for the imprisonment and torture or murder of the 52
Palestinian plaintiffs, and required the PA to compensate the victims
accordingly. In his decision, Justice Drori pointed
to the overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence of torture, and the
shocking similarity between the victims' testimony, which covers nearly 2,000
pages. Israeli cop
sentenced to 9 months for killing Palestinian teen Judah Ari Gross
& TOI staff, Times of Israel TOI, 25 April 2018 www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-cop-sentenced-to-9-months-for-killing-palestinian-teen/ [accessed 25 April
2018] A Jerusalem court
found the officer, Ben Deri, guilty of causing death by negligence for using
live ammunition, instead of rubber bullets, when he was ordered to disperse a
crowd of protesters during Nakba Day demonstrations in the West Bank village
of Beitunia, near Ramallah, on May 15, 2014. The presiding
judge, Daniel Teperberg, noted that Deri’s actions
represented “serious and severe harm” to the Israeli social values of
“sanctity of life and the human right to wellbeing.” The torture of a
Jewish child Chava Shulman, Arutz Sheva - Israel National
News, 3 April 2018 www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21944 [accessed 15 April
2018] One of those
interrogated boys testified that the Shabak
interrogators placed him on a low chair with no backrest, shackled to a
chair, with his legs bent back and tied to a chair. The interrogators then
forcibly bent his back until his head touched the floor and his back formed
an "opposite arc". They held him in this position for several
entire nights. The pain caused by this torture was unbearable. The
interrogators screamed in his face that if he wanted to be freed, he must
confess to the arson and crimes they accused him of. The torture lasted
for two weeks. It included prolonged sleep deprivation, slapping, beatings,
curses, threats, being tied into impossible body positions which caused
excruciating pain and fainting. One of those
interrogated boys testified that an interrogator beat his stomach while
another interrogator threw his head back until a doctor had to be called. Another time, one
of the boys was shackled with his feet to a chair, his hands cuffed behind
him. The interrogators raised his hands back until they formed a 90-degree
angle with his back, thus stopping the flow of blood into his hands. The boy,
then 17 years of age,
felt numbness and freezing cold in his hands due to the
cessation of the blood flow. Then the interrogators gave him an electric
shock and he felt his hands burning with terrible pain. The shock was so
strong that the boy was thrown to the ground.
There are other
terrible and horrific testimonies that I will not describe here. The two boys
were eventually willing to say anything to stop the suffering, the pain, and
the agony. A first: Israeli
court orders PA to compensate torture victims Arutz Sheva,
22 January 2018 www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/241030 [accessed 22 January
2018] Jerusalem court
orders PA to compensate torture victims, including a man with a Jewish mother
who was tortured to death. "Many of the
plaintiffs have similar descriptions of the torture methods they were
subjected to, including torture by the 'shabach
method' where the victim is tied in different ways, exposure to freezing cold
or extreme heat, withholding of water or the forced drinking of water from an
in-use toilet, beatings, forced sitting on a sharp broken bottle, and others.
It is difficult not to believe that these similar techniques were the result
of a single mode of operation that was accepted at the time in the prisons. "During the
entire time of his incarceration in Hevron, the
plaintiff was beaten continuously. This included hits to the groin, slamming
of his head into a wall which lead to hearing damage, and harm to his eyes
which has also left permanent damage. From the beatings he received, the
plaintiff lost two teeth. He was tied up in very painful manners, and was
denied sleep, the ability to shower, and access to a bathroom. For months
afterward he had blood in his urine and even now his body still has many
marks from the torture. "The attacks
and torture carried out against the plaintiff including beatings and strikes
from rifles owned by the defendants. The plaintiffs head was covered in
blood, his shirt was drenched in blood, and he was left bleeding from all
over his body. His groin was also struck, leaving him with a large bump and
pain in that region. They would tie him in the shabach
method, insult him, and spit in his face." Israeli Justice
Ministry drafting law on criminalizing torture of suspects Jewish News Service
JNS, 4 May 2016 www.jns.org/news-briefs/2016/5/4/israeli-justice-ministry-drafting-law-criminalizing-torture-of-suspects#.V7TV1TVwQ6Y= [accessed 17 August
2016] [accessed 31
December 2017] In response to a
request this week by the United Nations' Committee Against Torture (CAT) that
Israel criminalize torture, Israel's attorney general within the country's
Justice Ministry, Dr. Roy Schöndorf, confirmed that
Israel is drafting new legislation that would outlaw torture of suspects
during interrogation, Haaretz reported. An Israeli
delegation is currently taking part in a review by CAT in Geneva to determine
if Israel is in compliance with the U.N. Convention Against Torture. At Least 7,000
Eritreans in Israel Survived Torture, Rape in Sinai -- Most women and girls
were gang raped daily by Bedouin traffickers; many men raped as well Vered Lee, Haaretz, 6 June 2016 www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.723281 [accessed 8 August
2016] After a short
silence he shows the marks of his torture, burned into his body. He spreads
out his hands in embarrassment, showing a few stumps where his fingers had been
viciously cut off, rolls up his shirt to show his back, filled with signs of
serious burns, then turning his neck to expose some deep scars which still
haven't healed. His wife and
daughter had escaped earlier to Sudan and Dat had
planned to join them. Israel wasn't part of his plan, but the Bedouin human
traffickers who abducted him in 2011 changed things. They led him to torture
camps in the Sinai desert, where he remained for seven months. "They asked me
to pay $7,000 and I couldn't raise that kind of money for a long time"
he says. Human rights
complaints rise in Palestinian territories, group says Maher Abukhater, Los Angeles Times, Ramalla,
8 May 2014 www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-un-human-rights-palestinian-20140508-story.html [accessed 13 May
2014] Complaints of
torture and other mistreatment rose by 50% last year in areas governed by the
Palestinian Authority, according to a report by an independent commission. The annual report
by the Ramallah-based Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR),
published Thursday, offers a hint at the kind of scrutiny the Palestinian
Authority might face after joining United Nations agencies and treaties this
year. The report notes
"a remarkable increase in the number of complaints received on alleged
cases of torture and violations involving the right to physical safety in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip." It says that 497
allegations of torture and ill treatment were received by the commission in
2013, compared with 294 cases in 2012. Most of the cases - 347 - were in the
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Palestinian
watchdog group, established by the president of the Palestinian Authority 20
years ago, said it had also registered a "noticeable increase" in
arbitrary detentions in the West Bank and Gaza. It attributed the rise
"to the political variables and the continuation of the internal
political division" between the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and
Hamas, the Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since 2007. Torture in Gaza
Prisons: Systematic Policy or State of Emergency Due to Division? Hassan Dohan,
Palestine News Network PNN, 12 March 2014 english.pnn.ps/index.php/national/7090-torture-in-gaza-prisons-systematic-policy-or-state-of-emergency-due-to-division [accessed 17 March
2014] The citizen al-Hamidi was announced dead on the June 10th, 2011 at Dar
As-Sifa Hospital in the city of Gaza after entering
a coma, resulting from the torture and beating by members of the Anti-Drugs
Unit in Deir al-Balah. Ali Hamidi, brother of the victim said, "His brother
Hassan was arrested inside his house and he didn't suffer from any bruises or
illness when he was accompanied out of the house by the police. The police
took him to their headquarters in Deir al-Balah and detained him as a part of a large arrest
campaign carried out in the village, in which 55 other citizens were also
arrested." He continued,
"During the interrogation, a number of security forces beat him, as some
of the detainees told me. The investigators also mentioned that the security
forces said "they couldn't get anything from him and he doesn't want to
confess, so another policeman enters into the interrogation room and starts
torturing him to force him to confess and as a result of this, he was
transferred to the hospital in a very serious health condition the same day
of his arrest." Al-Hamidi added, "The day after Hassan's arrest, we
received a phone call from one of the friends assuring to us that our brother
Hassan was in a very critical condition and that he was in the Intensive Care
Unit (ICU) in Dar as-Shifa hospital in Gaza. We
rushed to the hospital and shortly after he was admitted to the hospital,
Hassan was announced dead." He continued,
"Upon receipt of our brother's body, we saw several bruises to his feet
and hands, in addition to a wound to his head with a length of 20 centimeters
resulting from the usage of a sharp object. The Independent
Falsely Claims That Israel 'Caged' Palestinian Children for Months Adam Levick, Managing editor of CiF Watch, an affiliate of the
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), 3
January 2014 [accessed 4 Jan
2014] Even by the
standards of anti-Israel bias in the British media that we're used to, a
story published yesterday at The Independent is simply astonishing. The Indy's charge that
Palestinian children were caged "for months" is completely untrue.
The charge that Palestinian children are sexually abused is not backed up
with any evidence. The broader charge that Palestinian kids are
"tortured" is unsubstantiated. Finally, to give you a sense of
perspective, not even Electronic Intifada or Russia Today (both of which ran
stories over the last couple of days on the PCATI report) make claims as
sensational as what the Indy reported. As we've
demonstrated previously, the Indy's recent broad claim - in an official
editorial - that the paper does NOT demonize Israel is clearly as fanciful a
notion as Adam Withnall's specific smear about
'tortured Palestinian children'. Palestinian Police
Torture Detained Journalist Ghassan Bannoura,
International Middle East Media Center IMEMC News, 11 November 2013 [accessed 11 Nov
2013] Radio Bethlehem
2000 announced on Monday that its director George Qanawati,
was beaten up and tortured while being under police custody. Qanawati was arrested by
Palestinian police and secret service officers from his home in the southern
West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday night. According to his neighbors,
officers stormed his home violently searched it then attacked Qanawati and his family slightly injuring his mother
during the arrest. Today Qanawati appeared in the local court in Bethlehem city;
according to radio Bethlehem 2000 he was seen beaten up and tortured. His
lawyer was not allowed to attend the court hearing with him, witnesses added. The radio station
on its website announced that the police accused Qanawati
of slander and public insulate of officials during his weekly show Amar Yabalad - building our country in English. Qanawati's show focuses in
bring forth residents concerns and problems and try
to address them in public debate between officials and residents every
Thursday. Amnesty Warns:
Hamas Planning to Execute Two Men Elad Benari,
Arutz Sheva - Israel
National News, 11 Aug 2013 www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/170770#.UggNB6yOBXg [accessed 11 Aug
2013] The human rights organization
said a 23-year-old man had been sentenced to death for "collaboration
with an enemy entity," He told his lawyer he had been beaten during
interrogation, Amnesty said. The second man, 27,
confessed to the rape and murder of a six-year-old boy in 2000. He was
sentenced to death despite being a minor at the time. Amnesty said he was
"apparently tortured to 'confess'" to the crime. The pair are among
40 prisoners on death row in Gaza. The most recent executions, of two men
convicted of collaborating, took place in June at a police compound. One of them
reportedly confessed after being tortured, Amnesty said, adding,
"Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in the custody of Hamas
security agencies are widespread and systematic." Israel furious at
UN report detailing torture of Palestinian children Phoebe Greenwood,
The Telegraph, Tel Aviv, 21 Jun 2013 [accessed 22 June
2013] Israel's security forces
have been accused by a United Nations monitoring group of torturing and
tormenting Palestinian children. "The Committee
expresses its deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and
ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by
the military and the police, and about the State party's failure to end these
practices in spite of repeated concerns expressed by treaty bodies," the
investigative body stated in its periodic review of Israel's child rights
record, released on Thursday. It continued: "[Palestinian children are]
systematically subject to physical and verbal violence, humiliation, painful
restraints, hooding of the head and face in a sack, threatened with death,
physical violence, and sexual assault against themselves or members of their
family, restricted access to toilet, food and water. The report prompted
a furious response from Israel, countering that the findings are "not
based on any direct investigation on the ground, only on documents gathered
from secondary sources." Palestinian lost
speech ability after PA torture Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, 19 May 2013 www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Palestinian-lost-speech-ability-after-PA-torture-313660 [accessed 20 May
2013] A Palestinian man
who was detained by the Palestinian Authority security forces in Hebron has
lost the ability to speak as a result of severe torture, according to a report
released by the Independent Commission for Human Rights. Mohamed Abdel Karim
Dar of Hebron was hospitalized after being tortured while in detention, the
report, which documented 28 cases of torture in PA prisons in the West Bank
last month, said. Dar had been
detained by agents belonging to the PA's Preventive Security Service and held
in solitary confinement, the document said. "He lost the
ability to speak and suffered from wounds to his body as a result of banging
his head against the wall and tying his hands while being held in solitary
condiment," the report added. It said that it had
received complaints of torture and mistreatment against other branches of the
PA security forces in the West Bank - 13 against the police, seven against
the Preventive Security Service, seven against the General Intelligence
Service and one against Military Intelligence. The organization
said it had received another 23 complaints of torture and mistreatment at the
hands of the Hamas police force in the Gaza Strip. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
-- Doc. CAT/C/ISR/CO/4 (2009) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/israel2009.html [accessed 1 March
2013] Defense of
'Necessity 14. Notwithstanding
the State party's assurances that following the Supreme Court's decision in
H.C.J. 5100/94, Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. The State of
Israel determined that the prohibition on the use of 'brutal or inhuman
means' is absolute, and its affirmation that 'necessity defense' is not a
source of authority for an interrogator's use of physical means, the
Committee remains concerned that the 'necessity defense' exception may still
arise in cases of 'ticking bombs,' i.e., interrogation of terrorist suspects
or persons otherwise holding information about potential terrorist attacks.
The Committee further notes with concern that, under Section 18 of the Israel
Security Agency (ISA) Law 5762-2002, "an ISA employee (…) shall not bear
criminal or civil responsibility for any act or omission performed in good
faith and reasonably by him within the scope and in performance of his
function". Although the State party reported that Section 18 has not
been applied to a single case, the Committee is concerned that ISA
interrogators who use physical pressure in "ticking bomb" cases may
not be criminally responsible if they resort to the necessity defense
argument. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61690.htm [accessed 31 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61690.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT - Laws, judicial
decisions, and administrative regulations prohibit torture and abuse;
however, during the year reputable nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) filed
numerous credible complaints with the government alleging that security
forces tortured and abused Palestinian detainees. The Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) filed complaints with the government on
behalf of alleged victims of torture, which, PCATI reported, were almost all
Palestinian security detainees and prisoners at detention facilities in
Israel. For example, on March 10, PCATI petitioned the supreme court on
behalf of a Palestinian resident of the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
The petition asked the court to order the government to cease immediately
illegal means of interrogation, including tightening of manacles, painful
positioning, sleep deprivation, beatings, threats, and insults. During court
proceedings the detainee was released. In August PCATI
notified the Israel Prison Service (IPS) and the Israel Security Agency (ISA)
about treatment of a Palestinian resident of Tulkarm
held as of April 22 in the Kishon Detention Center.
The detainee alleged he was subjected to painful positioning, beatings, long
periods of interrogation, threats, and food and sleep deprivation. PCATI
reported that the complainant suffered severe back pains and paralysis in his
left leg from the abuse. At year's end PCATI's petitions with the ISA and the
IPS were pending. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/israel [accessed 31 January
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 12 May
2020] The judiciary is
independent and regularly rules against the government. The Supreme Court
hears direct petitions from citizens and Palestinian residents of the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. In recent years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly
ordered the rerouting of the West Bank security barrier to decrease its
negative effects on Palestinian residents. In 2008, the government committed
to two court-mandated changes in the barrier. The Emergency
Powers (Detention) Law of 1979 provides for indefinite administrative
detention without trial. Most administrative detainees are Palestinian; there
are approximately 9,800 security prisoners in Israeli prisons. Negotiations
between Israel and the West Bank-based PA resulted in the release of hundreds
of these prisoners in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, the human rights groups B'Tselem and HaMoked Center
reported that Palestinian prisoners are held in terrible conditions and are
subject to abusive interrogation techniques, including instances of torture.
The government disputed the accuracy of the report. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS
OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Israel", http://gvnet.com/torture/Israel.htm, [accessed <date>] |
