UN-backed rights experts hear Palestinians’ allegations of abuse in Israeli custody during the war
Member of the Commission, Chris Sidoti, looks on during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)
GENEVA (AP) — Palestinians described alleged abuses by Israeli forces and settlers — punched in the genitals, held for days while naked, starved — to independent U.N.-backed human rights investigators on Tuesday during hearings on the treatment of detainees during the war in Gaza.
The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was created by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council and is led by former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. Its findings can be used as evidence for the International Criminal Court or other bodies that seek to prosecute war crimes and other rights violations in the context of the war.
Israel has refused to cooperate with the commission, accusing it and the council of anti-Israel bias. Israel, which quit the council shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a U.S. pullout last month, has repeatedly denied mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in its custody and said it takes action against any offenses.
Rights groups have alleged widespread abuse at a military detention facility, Sde Teiman.
The first witness, a male nurse from Gaza who spoke by video from the territory, alleged he was caged, hung up “like a punching bag,” beaten in the genitals until they bled and subjected with other detainees to attacks by dogs.
Saeed Mohammad Abdel-Fattah Abu Al-Jidyan, 26, said he was detained on Nov. 18, 2023, in the earliest days of the war, while working in Shifa Hospital. Through a translator, he described being ordered to strip naked and being held for three days with no clothes.
Israeli forces launched two major raids on Shifa, Gaza’s main hospital, during the war, accusing Hamas of using it for military purposes, allegations denied by hospital staff.
During questioning by military interrogators, including about tunnels Al-Jidyan said he knew nothing about, he said, “the torture affected the genitals.”
Another witness from Gaza, Abu Jidyan, said he was held at Sde Teiman and another facility. By the time of his release, he said he had lost nearly 30 kilograms (about 65 pounds). The duration of his custody was not immediately clear.
“This is not just my story. I’m just one person among many detained by the occupying Israeli power,” he said, according to a translator.
The accounts could not be independently verified. The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians. Over 250 people were taken hostage and dozens remain in Gaza. The territory’s Health Ministry says over 48,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war. It doesn’t say how many were combatants but says over half the dead were women and children.
The commission of inquiry is not considering allegations of sexual, gender-based and other violence committed against Israelis during the Oct. 7 attack or against hostages in Gaza. Israeli authorities, citing eyewitness accounts and other evidence, have accused Hamas-led militants of widespread rape and sexual violence. A U.N. envoy last year reported “reasonable grounds” to believe such allegations.
The commission says it has always sought to speak directly with Israeli victims but has not been able to do so, citing “obstruction” by Israel’s government and a lack of access, the U.N. rights office said.
The commission’s hearings continue Wednesday. It is expected to issue a report Thursday on Israel’s alleged “systematic” use of sexual and other gender-based violence against Palestinians since the Oct. 7 attacks.
The commission, created in May 2021 following other violence between Hamas and Israel, has previously held hearings on issues like the terrorism designation of several Palestinian NGOs and the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.