A Network for the Production of Torture: Thousands of Palestinians Face Systematic Torture, Abuse in Israeli Occupation Prisons
On UN Day for Victims of Torture, Palestinian prisoners' institutions warn of unprecedented cruelty amid ongoing genocide
Report by Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.
June 26, 2026
Ramallah, occupied Palestine - On the occasion of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, marked annually on June 26, Palestinian prisoners’ institutions stated that thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are being subjected, on a daily and momentary basis, to severe crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment inside Israeli occupation prisons and military camps.
In the wake of the ongoing crime of genocide against the Palestinian people, these prisons have been transformed into a central arena where the realities of this crime are most starkly manifested. This includes systematic and entrenched policies of murder, starvation, dehumanization, humiliation, and the deliberate infliction of severe physical and psychological suffering on detainees.
These crimes have affected all categories of prisoners, including children, women, the elderly, the wounded, and the sick, in flagrant violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law—particularly the 1984 Convention against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which criminalizes torture as a war crime and a crime against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.
The level of crimes committed against Palestinian political prisoners since the start of the Gaza genocide has far surpassed the traditional concept of torture, whether in terms of its scope, brutality, or the multiplicity of its tools. This makes the current period the bloodiest and harshest in the history of the Palestinian prisoners' movement under Israel’s brutal decades-long occupation.
Hundreds of testimonies and affidavits documented by Palestinian human rights and prisoner organizations over the past several years confirm that torture is no longer committed as individual violations or isolated practices. Rather, it has become an official and systematic policy sanctioned at the top levels of the political establishment and implemented with the participation of multiple levels of the occupation system—ranging from soldiers, prison guards, interrogation officers, the prison administration, the prosecution, and the judiciary, all of whom provided the necessary cover, incitement, and legislation for the continuation of these crimes.
Documented testimonies show that crimes of torture operations from the very moment of arrest through brutal physical assault, threats, intimidation, enforced disappearance, and painful and prolonged shackling. Multiple torture methods are used, including shabeh (prolonged painful stress positions), electric shocks, burning with boiling water and chemical substances, pulling out fingernails, and prolonged deprivation of sleep, food, water, medical treatment, and restroom use. Furthermore, it involves the use of extreme noise, deliberate humiliation, and forcing detainees to remain in degrading positions, reaching grave sexual violations and documented crimes of rape.
Inhumane detention conditions—including starvation, denial of healthcare, and the spread of diseases and epidemics, chief among them scabies—have also contributed to turning the detention environment into a tool of continuous torture aimed at physically and psychologically destroying detainees and deliberately inflicting severe suffering upon them.
The photos and videos published by occupation soldiers and officials, alongside the testimonies provided by released prisoners, constitute key and additional evidence of the commission of systematic crimes of torture and humiliation. This includes sexual torture and sexual assaults which, given their nature and scale, likely rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The testimonies of detainees from occupied Gaza particularly highlight the magnitude of the atrocities committed inside Israeli occupation army camps, which detainees described as places of slow death and organized torture. Cases of limb amputations without anesthesia, systematic denial of medical treatment, sexual assaults, field executions, and the use of detainees as human shields have been documented. These actions constitute grave breaches of international humanitarian law and amount to international crimes that warrant criminal accountability.
Our institutions also confirm that UN reports and mechanisms during 2025 and 2026 concluded that there is a systematic pattern of torture and ill-treatment against Palestinian political detainees. In its concluding observations on Israel issued in November 2025, the UN Committee against Torture expressed its deep concern over consistent reports of torture, ill-treatment, sexual assault, and violence leading to the death and killing of Palestinian detainees, calling for independent investigations and ensuring accountability.
In March 2026, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, warned that torture has become a "structural feature" in the treatment of detained Palestinians, and that Israeli detention centers and prisons have turned into spaces for the production of torture and inhumane treatment amid near-total impunity.
Similarly, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in its report issued in June 2026, concluded that grave violations were committed against Palestinian detainees, including torture, sexual violence, and gender-based violence, raising individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Previously, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in its report issued in July 2024, documented that thousands of Palestinians were subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, including deprivation of healthcare, starvation, enforced disappearance, and physical and psychological assaults.
Our institutions believe that the continued denial of access for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and independent international bodies to Palestinian detainees, alongside restrictions imposed on the work of lawyers and human rights organizations, constitutes a systematic attempt to hide evidence and obliterate the features of the crimes committed within the Israeli prison system.
Furthermore, the continued commission of torture crimes against Palestinian prisoners, despite repeated UN documentation and warnings issued by UN experts and treaty bodies, reflects a serious international failure to enforce the rules of international law. It underscores that the absence of accountability and ongoing impunity have created an environment that allowed the torture system to evolve into part of the structure through which the policy of oppression and persecution against the Palestinian people is managed.
We emphasize that international silence regarding these crimes, and the continued political and diplomatic immunity and impunity enjoyed by the occupying state, directly contribute to perpetuating the system of torture and impunity. It encourages the continuation of grave violations and the killing of Palestinian political prisoners.
In this context, our institutions renew their demands to the international community, the United Nations, and relevant international mechanisms to act urgently to:
- Activate the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute all Israeli officials involved in these crimes.
- Ensure the accountability of all officials, from political and military leaders to prison officials and soldiers, and prevent impunity from punishment.
- Impose effective international measures and sanctions on the Israeli occupation state to halt grave and systematic violations.
- Ensure immediate and unconditional access for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and independent international bodies to all Israeli detention facilities.
- Provide international protection for Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, and guarantee the victims' rights to justice, redress, and reparations.
We reiterate: "The prohibition of torture is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens), and it may not be justified under any circumstances, including war, public emergency, or security considerations. States bear legal obligations to take effective measures to prevent torture, investigate it, prosecute its perpetrators, and ensure redress and reparations for the victims."
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