Israel has 'de facto state policy' of organised torture, says UN report [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Israel has ‘de facto state policy’ of organised torture, says UN report

Committee highlights allegations including dog attacks and sexual violence, raising concern about impunity for war crimes




Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.

The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”.

The report, published on Friday as part of the committee’s regular monitoring of countries that have signed the UN convention against torture, also said Palestinian detainees were humiliated by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on”, were systematically denied medical care and subject to excessive use of restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation”.

The UN committee of 10 independent experts raised concern about the wholesale use of Israel’s unlawful combatants law to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children. The latest figures published by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said that as of the end of September the Israel Prison Service was holding 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention”, meaning without trial.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/29/israel-has-de-facto-state-policy-of-organised-torture-says-un-report