End Israeli Torture
For the population of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), the threat of being subject to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment remains ever present. Far from being the random acts of a few ‘bad apples,’ the torture of Palestinians is widespread and institutionalized; indeed, torture has yet to be absolutely prohibited under Israeli law. The thousands of Palestinian detainees incarcerated in Israeli facilities are especially vulnerable; among other forms of cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, they are routinely beaten, exposed to extreme temperatures, denied medical treatment, bound in painful stress positions, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement.
As the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continue to carry-out large-scale military operations in the oPt at will, in the silence of the international community, Palestinian civilians, including women and children, are also a target. In breach of international humanitarian and human rights law, the IOF uses Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields, demolishes civilian homes in their thousands - including for punitive purposes - and arbitrarily shoots, detains and mistreats Palestinian farmers and fishers attempting to eke out a living in the border areas of Gaza or the Mediterranean Sea.
The State of Israel also deliberately withholds access to lifesaving medical treatment for patients who cannot be treated in Gaza, in some cases, conditioning permits on providing information or collaboration. In many cases Palestinian patients either granted IOF permission to exit Gaza through Erez Crossing or summoned for questioning by the Israel Security Agency have been detained upon arriving to Erez, interrogated and tortured. In several cases, Palestinians have died waiting for exit permits to be issued.
As well as withholding access to medical treatment for patients who cannot be treated in Gaza, the IOF also frequently prevents emergency services from accessing civilians wounded as a result of its military attacks. During Operation Cast Lead alone, a major military offensive launched against the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, at least 258 persons died after Israeli forces obstructed medical access; 66 of those victims were children.
Through a new joint project entitled, Combating and Preventing Torture, launched in May 2009, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, in cooperation with two key partners, Adalah - the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights and Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, has scaled up its efforts to challenge these violations, and protect and assist the victims. Al Mezan is grateful to the European Commission (EC) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for their financial support to this project.
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Testimonies
The prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is absolute under international law. Moreover, the prohibition on torture is a jus cogens norm. That is, it is a fundamental norm that applies to all States, regardless of whether they have ratified relevant treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture (CAT). This status reflects the importance attributed to the prohibition of torture by the international community, and its universal condemnation.
Torture under Israeli Law
As noted by the UN Committee Against Torture in its Concluding Observations (CO) on Israel from 2009, not only does the State of Israel continue to practice torture, but the absolute prohibition of torture in international law has not yet been incorporated into Israeli law. After the dismissal of thousands of complaints of torture against Palestinians by the Israeli Supreme Court, in 1999 the court ruled some methods of interrogation illegal, but continued to allow the use of pressure and discomfort to extract information. The court also indicated that General Security Services (GSS) agents (the GSS has now been renamed the Israel Security Agency or ISA) who used torture on so-called ‘ticking bombs’ could avoid prosecution through the ‘defense of necessity’, and authorized the Attorney General to grant retroactive impunity to interrogators. Thus the court sanctioned the mistreatment of interrogatees and created a legal ambiguity with regard to torture that allowed the state to continue to perpetrate some forms of torture.
The impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of torture was further consolidated in the General Security Service Law (2002), which specifies that a (GSS) employee “shall not bear criminal or civil responsibility for any act or omission performed in good faith and reasonably by him within the scope and in performance of his function.” Following the Supreme Court’s ruling and the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel has continued to carry out various practices including physical and psychological coercion that violate (CAT) inside prisons and against Palestinian civilians in the oPt, many of which have been identified by the Committee Against Torture in its COs of 2001, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) in 2003, and the UN Special Rapporteur (SR) on Human Rights and Countering Terrorism in 2007 as subjects of concern and in violation of these conventions.
Palestinian Detainees
The State of Israel continues to hold Palestinian for months and years at a time without trial on the basis of ‘secret evidence’ to which neither the detainee nor his or her attorney has access. Palestinians from the West Bank are detained without trial under administrative orders issued arbitrarily by Israeli military courts, and Palestinians from the Gaza Strip under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law 2002 (amended 2008). This law has been widely condemned by human rights experts; amongst other draconian provisions, it enables the sweeping detention without trial of large numbers of persons and releases the State from the need to provide evidence justifying the internment - the burden of proof is placed instead onto the shoulders of the internee who is unable to access information regarding the allegations and therefore can never effectively refute them.
When in detention, Palestinian prisoners and detainees are routinely exposed to various forms of physical and psychological torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, not solely in the so-called ‘ticking bombs’ cases, including inter alia beatings, exposure to extreme temperatures, medical neglect, binding in painful ‘stress’ positions, sleep deprivation, placement in solitary confinement and other extreme conditions of confinement. The Israel Security Agency or ISA (formerly the GSS) has also arrested innocent family members of detainees for the purpose of applying additional pressure to force a confession or gain information. Access to lawyers is restricted by the prison authorities, often with the acquiescence of the courts, facilitating the practice of torture and hampering reporting on its incidence. Prisoners from Gaza have not received family visits for two years. Torture, as well as the extraction of false confessions, are also facilitated by the ISA’s policy of not fulfilling its obligations under Israeli and international law to document interrogations in writing or by video or audiotape. Prison medical professionals and lawyers often lack knowledge of international standards, hindering their implementation in prisons and the courts. Prison medical professionals lack independence and often participate in/condone/fail to report practices that amount to torture. Even hospital doctors, who sometimes see tortured prisoners, do not report incidents of torture.
Respect within Israeli prisons and detention centres for the principles of (CAT), the (ICCPR) and other relevant human rights standards, including the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), is low. Although Israel has ratified (CAT)and the (ICCPR), they are not considered legally binding in Israeli law. As explained above, however, the prohibition on torture is a jus cogens norm and thus applies to all States regardless of whether they have ratified relevant treaties. The lack of an effective mechanism to enforce (CAT)or independent visits to prisons has contributed to a prevailing culture of impunity. The inspector who investigates complaints against ISA interrogators is himself employed by the (ISA) and not one criminal investigation has been opened and no prosecutions have been brought against alleged perpetrators of torture despite thousands of allegations and complaints. Israel has entered reservations to (CAT)to prevent review of its practices by the (ICJ), and has not declared in favor of other articles so that the Committee cannot consider individual complaints. Israel has not ratified the OPs to (CAT)or the *(ICCPR).
Palestinian Civilians
Palestinians in the oPt are defined as a protected population under occupation in international humanitarian law (IHL), but are being deprived of the rights and legal protections to which they are entitled by Israel. The percentage of children among the Palestinian population of the oPt is relatively high, with around 45.7% of the population aged between 0-14 years of age. Children are among the groups most vulnerable to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, both as direct and indirect victims. Women are also affected in particularly harsh ways by practices such as home demolitions.
The Committee Against Torture, the Human Rights Committee and other UN bodies have also raised concerns about Israeli acts in the oPt that harm the Palestinian civilian population and in certain circumstances amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in violation of Article 16 of (CAT). These acts include inter alia closures, punitive home demolitions, extrajudicial executions, the deliberate withholding of access to life saving medical treatment, and the use of civilians as human shields, and are practiced by the armed forces with impunity. These practices also stand in breach of IHL, which absolutely prohibits the deliberate killing of civilians and requires that armed forces distinguish at all times between combatants and non-combatants, and observe the principles of military necessity and proportionality.
· The deliberate withholding of access to life saving medical treatment – The ISA deliberately withholds access to medical care for patients who cannot be treated in Gaza’s struggling medical facilities. In numerous cases, granting entry to patients has been conditioned on their providing information or collaboration. “Deliberate withholding of medical care for reasons other than contraindications or lack of availability of medicines could, in extremis, represent cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” according to the British Medical Association. In many cases Palestinian patients either granted IOF permission to exit Gaza through Erez Crossing or summoned for questioning by the Israeli intelligence have been interrogated, detained and tortured. In several cases, Palestinians have died waiting for exit permits. The IOF also frequently prevents emergency services from accessing the wounded during its military operations. During Operation Cast Lead alone, launched against the Gaza Strip 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009, at least 258 persons out of the total 1,409 killed during that operation died after Israeli forces obstructed medical access; 66 of those victims were children.
· Extrajudicial executions, an integral part of Israeli military practice, constitute a gross violation of international human rights law. Often, many bystanders are also killed in these attacks, as well as the ‘target’.
· Home demolitions, many of which are punitive, continue on a widespread scale throughout the oPt. During Operation Cast Lead alone, at least 3500 houses were completely destroyed, making homeless thousands of men, women and children.
· The use of civilians, including children as young as nine, as human shields remains a widespread Israeli military practice. This practice, banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2005, involves using civilians to shield soldiers from possible attack. As well as amounting to torture, the use of human shields constitutes a war crime under IHL.
Through a new joint project entitled, Combating and Preventing Torture, launched in May 2009, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, in cooperation with two key partners, Adalah - the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights and Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, has scaled up its efforts to challenge the widespread and institutionalized torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees and civilians, and protect and assist the victims.
The overarching objective of this project is to combat and prevent torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention centres and Palestinian civilians in the oPt. The activities of this project will contribute to this goal through:
· Improving standards of detection, data collection, and documentation of torture, and effectiveness of legal representation for victims of torture by training medical professionals, lawyers and human rights activists
· Lobbying through advocacy before the UN and the EU in order to gain relevant Concluding Observations and other recommendations from UN and EU bodies encouraging Israel to comply with and implement (CAT)
· The creation of a greater quantity and quality of information on the torture of Palestinians through producing publications including positions papers, documentation reports and a journal on torture, and through scaling up documentation
· Providing legal assistance to victims of torture by filing individual complaints and legal letters to the Israeli authorities and providing legal advice to victims of torture and their families as well as intervening on their behalf with the Israeli authorities
· Seeking to set and consolidate legal norms by obtaining favourable court rulings on torture through petitions filed to the Israeli courts
Al Mezan is grateful to the European Commission (EC) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for their financial support to this project.
· The Targeting of Medical Centers, Ambulance Teams and Civil Defense Teams during the Israeli Offensive “Operation Cast Lead” against the Gaza Strip, 27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009
