Israel expands torture of Palestinian detainees since Gaza war: Report

By Abdel Raouf Arnaout and Mohammad Sio

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL (AA) – Israel has sharply escalated its use of torture and severe abuses against Palestinian detainees since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israeli human rights organizations said in a report submitted to the UN Committee Against Torture.

The findings – prepared by Adalah, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Parents Against Child Detention, HaMoked and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel – were included in a joint submission to the UN committee last October as part of its periodic review of Israel’s compliance with the Convention Against Torture, Haaretz newspaper reported.

“Since October 7, 2023, Israel has intensified its violations of the UN Convention Against Torture,” the report said, noting that Israel “employs torture throughout the entire detention process targeting Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian citizens, with senior officials sanctioning these abuses while judicial and administrative mechanisms fail to intervene.”

According to the report, Israel has broadly relied on classifying Palestinians as “unlawful combatants" – a designation not recognized under international law – allowing authorities to hold detainees for extended periods without trial and to deny them protections afforded to prisoners of war.

“Israel detained more than 4,000 Gaza residents under this classification and also made extensive use of administrative detention,” the rights groups said.

The report also documents a sharp rise in administrative detention, with the number of detainees held without charge increasing from roughly 1,100 before the war to 3,500 by September 2025, alongside a doubling of detention periods.

-Widespread torture

The organizations cited testimonies that Gazan detainees were held in “open-air corrals exposed to the elements, shackled and blindfolded around the clock, forced to kneel for most of the day and compelled to sleep on the ground” amid a severe lack of hygiene and health care.

Some detainees “received medical treatment while shackled and blindfolded and were forced to use diapers to relieve themselves.”

The report described food policies that amount to starvation, with detainees receiving no more than 1,000 calories and 40 grams of protein per day.

The documented accounts include “the use of batons; pouring of boiling water, causing severe burns; Dog attacks on detainees; Use of a 'Disco Room' employing intense sensory manipulation with painfully loud music; rape with objects."

The rights groups said at least 94 detainees have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza war, with dozens more suffering irreversible health damage.

Complaints of torture during Shin Bet interrogations rose from 66 complaints over two decades to 238 over the past two years, the report said. Only two investigations were recommended, and none resulted in indictments, while three detainees have died during interrogation.

The Shin Bet denies using torture but acknowledges employing “special interrogation methods,” including sleep deprivation, painful shackling, shaking, exposure to cold, loud music, interrogation while naked, and threats against family members.

- Denial of medical care

In the military system, 58 investigations were opened into abuse of detainees – 44 related to detainee deaths – but only two led to indictments. In Israel's Prison Service, 36 investigations resulted in six indictments, none involving deaths or sexual assault, the groups said.

The report said that the Supreme Court has effectively endorsed the dire state of the detention system, rejecting 18 of 20 petitions seeking improved detention conditions. The court ordered the closure of Sde Teiman prison in one case and accepted a petition on food policy only after long delays.

The organizations also said Israel Prison Service facilities “use the denial of medical care as a method of torture,” citing scabies outbreaks affecting thousands of detainees among the examples.

It also noted that the fate of hundreds of Gazan detainees remains unknown.

According to Haaretz, Israeli representatives from the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry and prison service appeared before the UN committee about two weeks ago and rejected accusations that Israel had violated the Convention Against Torture or international law in its treatment of detainees.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, where they face torture, starvation and medical neglect that has resulted in deaths, according to Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups.

Israel denies the existence of systematic violations, a claim rejected by human rights groups urging urgent international intervention to halt what they describe as “systematic crimes” against detainees.

Since October 2023, abuses against Palestinian prisoners have escalated as the Israeli army has killed nearly 70,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured 171,000 others in a brutal war that has left much of the enclave in ruins.