The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, stated that the “systematic” torture inflicted by Israel on Palestinians — sustained for decades by impunity and political support — is now being employed as a tool in the ongoing genocide in the territory.
In a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, she explained: “Since the onset of the genocide, the Israeli prison system has evolved into a site of calculated cruelty… What was once hidden is now carried out in plain view: a structured system of humiliation, pain, and degradation, sanctioned at the highest political levels.”
The report comes at a time when several media outlets have reported deeply disturbing acts of torture inflicted on an infant in Gaza by Israeli forces, aimed at forcing his father, who has a mental illness, to confess why he approached military positions.
Circulating images reveal signs of abuse on Karim, a one-and-a-half-year-old child and son of Oussama Abou Nassar. According to witnesses and medical sources, the child was taken along with his father near their home, east of Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza. The Israeli army is said to have taken the child while interrogating the father, who had been shot at a checkpoint, subjecting the child to torture in front of him to pressure him into confessing. Witnesses reported that “soldiers put out cigarettes on the child’s leg, pierced him, and drove a metal nail into his leg.”
Francesca Albanese also noted that policies introduced by senior officials, “including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir” have effectively institutionalized torture, collective punishment and inhumane detention conditions.
She stressed that those responsible for these “serious human rights violations — which cannot be justified even in wartime — must be investigated and brought to justice, including before the International Criminal Court.”
According to the report, more than 18,500 Palestinians in the occupied territory — including at least 1,500 children — have been detained since October 2023, with thousands still held without charge or trial.
Many are believed to have been forcibly disappeared, and nearly 100 individuals have died in custody. The report states that detainees have endured “unimaginable” abuses, including rape with bottles, metal rods, and knives, starvation, broken bones and teeth, spitting, physical assaults, as well as dog attacks accompanied by acts of humiliation.
The document presented to the Human Rights Council highlights that torture is not confined to prisons. It asserts that “Israel has established an environment of torture across the occupied Palestinian territory” through ongoing bombardment, forced displacement, famine, the destruction of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure, extensive surveillance, and the “terror” carried out by soldiers as well as “settler militias.”
Albanese stated that Palestinians “in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are subjected to a continuum of suffering. There is no refuge no safe place to exist.”
The report concludes that “the systematic use of torture — alongside a broader campaign of destruction targeting Palestinians — forms an integral part of the ongoing genocide and causes severe physical and psychological harm to Palestinians as a group.”
The independent expert emphasized the urgent need for Israel to immediately halt all acts of torture and ill-treatment, grant access to international investigators and humanitarian organizations and ensure accountability for those responsible, in order to end the occupation.
She urged UN member states to meet their legal obligations to prevent and punish genocide, torture, and other grave violations of international law, including by carrying out investigations and issuing arrest warrants against those responsible, naming “Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz.”
She concluded by reaffirming that international law unequivocally prohibits torture, without exception.