UN watchdog urges Israel to probe Gaza ‘torture’ claims

A UN committee urged Israel on Friday to set up an independent investigatory commission to probe claims of torture of Palestinians, and warned the situation had “gravely intensified” since the start of the Gaza war.

The United Nations Committee against Torture said it was “deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” in Israel.

The committee, whose 10 independent experts monitor how countries implement an international convention against torture, stressed that it “unequivocally condemned the attack perpetrated by Hamas and other groups on October 7, 2023 against Israel.”

But in a report published after a regular review of Israel, it “also expressed its deep concern over the disproportionate nature of Israel’s response to these attacks.”

And it decried “a range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” warning that it risked leading to “cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population.”

The experts called on Israel to “establish an independent, impartial and effective ad hoc investigatory commission to review and investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment committed during the current armed conflict.”

Israel should also “prosecute those responsible, including superior officers, and ensure the immediate entry of necessary humanitarian aid and aid workers into Gaza,” the committee members said.

During the review conducted in Geneva earlier this month, committee rapporteur Peter Vedel Kessing told the Israeli delegation the experts had been “deeply appalled by the description we have received… of what appears to be systematic and widespread torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians, including children.”

“It is claimed that torture has become a deliberate and widespread tool of state policy… from arrest to interrogation to imprisonment.”

The committee report highlighted allegations of widespread use of torture methods, including “repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions (and) sexual violence.”

During the review, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, rejected the allegations presented, branding them “disinformation.”

Israel, he said, was “committed to upholding its obligations in line with our moral values and principles, even in the face of the challenges posed by a terrorist organization.”