Although it has not yet responded to Tel Aviv Tribune’s request for comment, Israel continues to object to accusations of torture leveled against its armed forces in an unpublished report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. United Nations (UNRWA).
The report details the widespread use of torture against Palestinians taken prisoner by the Israeli army in Gaza, including 21 UNRWA personnel and 15 members of their families, an accusation that Israel has denied.
The report’s findings are consistent with testimonies Tel Aviv Tribune has collected from people detained in Gaza and tortured by Israel since the start of its war against the besieged enclave.
There are also well-documented cases in which arbitrarily detained Palestinians have been subjected to profoundly degrading treatment, a circumstance also detailed in the UNRWA report.
According to the February report, UNRWA had documented the release of 1,002 detainees – aged six to 82 – by Israel at the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom by Israel) between December 18 and February 19.
Among the released detainees were UNRWA staff, women, children, the elderly and vulnerable people living with illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and cancer, all of whom were taken from Gaza and detained in various locations in Israel.
To help these people, UNRWA has set up a reception center in Karam Abu Salem where they provide food and water to the released people and help them rejoin their families.
“In most cases, released detainees are extremely disoriented, hungry, physically exhausted and show visible signs of physical and mental trauma and wear dirty clothing, sometimes with visible blood stains.
“They are often unaware that the war continues, sometimes do not realize that they have returned to Gaza, and they do not know the whereabouts or what has happened of their loved ones,” the report said.
However, UNRWA noted that the releases it documented represent only a portion of the total number of people detained and abused by Israel in Gaza, as there are many more who are taken, tortured and released into Gaza. – he provided an estimate of around 4,000 people. generally.
Torture
While in custody, those arrested were questioned, with UNRWA staff taking particular interest in Israeli interrogators who allegedly attempted to coerce them into confessing to their complicity with Hamas or the October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1 139 people and captured 253 people who were brought back. in Gaza.
Practices recorded by UNRWA include the use of a nail gun on prisoners’ knees, sexual abuse of men and women, and the insertion of what appears to be an electrified metal stick into the rectums of prisoners. prisoners.
“They hit me with an extendable metal bar. There was blood on my pants and when they saw it, they hit me there. They used a nail gun on my knee. These nails remained in my knee for about 24 hours until I was transported to Naqab prison,” a 26-year-old man told UNRWA about his 56 days of detention in Israel.
Mahmoud Abd Rabbu, 62, from Jabalia, told Tel Aviv Tribune that he was transferred to the Indonesian hospital and that, during the final days of the Israeli siege of the hospital, he was told that everyone had to move south.
He headed to a checkpoint that had been deemed “safe” by Israeli forces, where he and another man were selected from a group of 80 people and detained.
He describes being held in a group of more than 100 men who all endured days of “beatings, hunger and cold”, adding that they were blindfolded, not allowed to sleep and that they were forced to spend most of the day on their knees.
“If anyone removed the blindfold covering his eyes,” he said, “he would be called by the soldiers and beaten, then hanged on the barbed wire.”
Another detained man told UNRWA: “They made me sit on something that looked like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire – I got burns (on my anus). The soldiers hit me with their shoes on the chest and used something that looked like a metal stick with a small nail on the side,” he said.
“They asked us to drink from the toilets and made the dogs attack us,” he recalled, before describing how he saw the bodies of “maybe nine” people who had been arrested and killed, including one who died after being arrested. put the electric stick in his (anus). He got so sick that we saw worms coming out of his body and then he died,” he said.
Khaled el-Nabreis from the Khan Younis refugee camp told Tel Aviv Tribune that he and several other men spent three days without food or water, “only beaten, and when we slept they covered us with wet blankets in the freezing cold.” » after being killed. were arrested by Israeli forces and taken to a location he did not recognize.
Several of the individuals tortured and then released by Israel told Tel Aviv Tribune that the soldiers who tormented them asked the same kinds of questions, including: “Where are the tunnels? “, “Where is (Hamas leader) Sinwar? », “Where are the tunnels? prisoners?” and “Who do you know is a Hamas fighter?
Rami Abu Daqqa from Bani Suhaila in Gaza told Tel Aviv Tribune that he and his family tried to return home from Rafah in late January. As they approached the house, he said, Israeli snipers opened fire, shooting him in the leg. His voice breaking, he added that his brother, Hani, had been shot and killed in the same roadblock.
He then described how Israeli soldiers administered first aid for his gunshot wound to his leg and beat him to make him confess that they knew Hamas fighters. He was then transferred to an Israeli hospital, where a platinum plate was inserted into his leg, while blindfolded, handcuffed 24 hours a day and interrogated regularly.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s accounts of the mistreatment of released detainees at the hospital where they were being treated match those in the UNRWA report. The report goes further to claim that all released detainees required medical attention and were transferred to hospital immediately from the border crossing when possible, given the dire state of Gaza’s health sector after nearly six months of Israeli attacks.
In one case detailed in the report, urgent medical transport was arranged for a child who was released in Karam Abu Salem with dog bites visible on his body and a bruised face.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week, the body’s international torture expert, Dr Alice Jill Edwards, told Reuters she had requested to travel to Israel to investigate widespread reports of torture against both sides of the conflict.
Stacking the deck
In January, Israel accused several UNRWA employees of participating in the October 7 attacks.
In an attempt to extract confessions to support the accusations, Israeli interrogators tortured UNRWA personnel they detained in Gaza, some of whom they captured while carrying out their duties as UNRWA personnel. international humanitarian agency.
In detention, UNRWA personnel suffered “serious beatings; drowning simulation; exposure to dogs; threats of violence… rape and electrocution; verbal and psychological violence; threats of murder, injury or other harm to their family members; humiliating and degrading treatment; being forced to strip and subjected to photography,” according to the report.
An investigation was launched by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into the already heavily audited agency to determine the extent of any alleged complicity in the October attack and nine UNRWA employees have were fired following these allegations.
Nine of the agency’s main donors, including the United States and the United Kingdom, announced the immediate suspension of donations worth $450 million, the equivalent of about half of the annual budget of the agency.
A freedom of information request to the British government, which said it based the decision to suspend UNRWA contributions on the Israeli report, has not yet been provided to Tel Aviv Tribune English, although it was promised for March 6.
However, according to United Nations diplomats, an interim report released earlier this month on allegations made by Israel against the agency contained no new information beyond previous unsubstantiated allegations of UNRWA complicity.
Sweden, the EU and Canada announced they were resuming donations while other countries, including the United States, said they would wait until investigations into the agency are complete before reviewing their decision to suspend the funds.
Israel has long refused the presence of UNRWA in Gaza. She blamed criticism during the International Court of Justice’s preliminary ruling on January 26, when South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide during its war on Gaza. This prospect becomes more and more likely as aid is blocked and the besieged population is tilted ever further toward starvation.
On Monday, the Times of Israel reported that the country’s forces intended to unilaterally dismantle UNRWA in Gaza, with its functions handed over to other agencies chosen by the military.
Although it is not clear which agencies the Israeli military has designated, or whether negotiations are underway, the report notes that the move against the agency is the latest in a long-running campaign to discredit it , which dates back to the creation of UNRWA in 1949, mandating the agency to support displaced Palestinian refugees until they could return home.
As hunger worsens, with 15 children reported to have died of starvation in recent days, UNRWA’s role in helping prevent what agencies are calling a “humanitarian crisis” is becoming ever more vital.
Other agencies, such as the Danish Refugee Council, have warned that neither they nor other NGOs still active in Gaza can replicate UNRWA’s role.
Tel Aviv Tribune will continue to call on the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to share the Israeli allegations against UNRWA it has received.
