| Whether a student, community activist, politician or an average citizen, these fact sheets will provide you with concise information on the different issues related to the current Intifada and Palestine. Feel free to print and distribute them as long as they are accredited to the Palestine Monitor.
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Torture of Palestinians Background
Physical and psychological torture against Palestinian prisoners has not stopped since the start of the Israeli occupation in 1967.
Israel has always denied its involvement in using torture as a method of interrogation, despite all evidence to the contrary -- including the killing and disabling of numerous detainees in Israeli interrogation rooms.
Until 1999, Israeli intelligence services based their torture methods on the Landau Ministerial Committee's License of 1987, which gave them the power to use “moderate physical pressure” -- as it was called by the Committee -- and psychological pressure during interrogations. The Committee never explained the meaning of “moderate physical pressure” -- or the cases in which it was allowed to be used -- in its published reports.
Since the Landau Commission recommendations were issued in 1987, the General Security Service (GSS, now the ISA -- Israeli Security Agency) tortured at least 850 Palestinians a year during interrogations.1
Israel ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) in October 1991, but declared, under Article 28, that they do not recognize the competence of the Committee Against Torture to investigate allegations of widespread torture within Israel’s borders.
Article 1 of the Convention states that “the term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity…”
Torture during the First Intifada
During the first intifada (1987-1993), Israeli security forces, the GSS, police and investigative military police interrogated approximately 23,000 Palestinians.2 The Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) estimates that almost all of them suffered from some form of torture during their interrogation. Methods of interrogation and torture frequently used by the GSS included: 3 - tying up detainees in painful positions for hours or days;
- solitary confinement;
- confinement in tiny, cramped cubicles;
- beatings;
- covering the detainee’s head with a sack;
- violent “shaking”;
- deprivation of sleep and food;
- exposure to extreme cold or heat;
- verbal, sexual and psychological abuse;
- threats against the individual’s life or family members’ lives;
- lack of adequate clothing or hygiene;
- sleep deprivation and playing of extremely loud music
Torture banned -- except…
In response to seven petitions filed by human rights organizations 4 on behalf of Palestinian detainees, Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously outlawed methods of physical force that were routinely used in interrogations by the GSS on 6 September 1999.
This decision voided the interrogation guidelines previously in effect based on Landau Commission recommendations, thereby ending legal torture of Palestinians in interrogation.
However, although the Court ruled that torture was generally prohibited to put pressure on detainees to confess during interrogations, the Court ruled that torture was allowed in “exceptional cases.”
The exceptional cases, referred to as “necessary protection,” included those cases, according to the Court, where officers have reason to believe that they can prevent a crime. This became known as the “ticking bomb” exception. Confusingly, the Court ruled that although “necessary protection” did not give officers the legal right to use physical force against detainees, it did not rule out the use of force as completely prohibited -- as it is under international law.
This ruling left a door open for the Israeli Knesset to enact laws giving the Israeli police the authority to use excessive force. Moreover, the Court ruling made the prosecution of any officer found to have used torture highly unlikely, as it left “necessary protection” open to interpretation.
Torture Post-1999
Since then, according to Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, more than 85% of Palestinian detainees are still being subjected to torture or ill-treatment during interrogations.
Ill-treatment generally begins by depriving detainees of contact with the outside world -- particularly lawyers, the International Red Cross and family members -- for a period ranging from days to weeks or more.
Methods of torture still being used in interrogation units include:5 - tying to a chair in painful positions, beating, slapping, kicking, threats, verbal abuse and humiliation;
- bending of the body in extremely painful positions, intentional tightening of the handcuffs, stepping on manacles, application of pressure to different parts of the body, forcing the detainee to squat in a painful position (known as “kambaz”), choking, pulling out of hair and other forms of violence and humiliation (spitting etc.);
- sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, exposure to extreme heat and cold, continuous exposure to artificial light, confinement in inhumane conditions.
Moreover, interrogation officials are professionally supervised by the State Attorney’s office -- and the State Attorney investigates complaints by detainees about their interrogation. The investigator is, therefore, investigating both his colleagues and the detainee.
As a result of this method of inquiry, not a single GSS interrogator has been brought to trial 6 since the investigations of complaints against the GSS were transferred to the State Attorney’s office in 1994.
Violations of CAT
On 21 November 2001 the Committee against Torture met delegates from the Israeli government in a public session to examine the third periodic report on Israel’s implementation of the Convention Against Torture (CAT).
Regarding the issue of “ticking bomb” cases, the Committee criticized the fact that interrogators who use physical pressure in extreme circumstances are able to rely on the “defence of necessity,” stating that, “Necessity as a possible justification to the crime of torture should be removed from the domestic law.” 7
In its conclusions the Committee voiced 11 areas of concern and made 11 recommendations,8 declaring that “while recognising the right of Israel to protect its citizens from violence, no exceptional circumstances may be invoked as justification of torture.” 9
International human rights organization Amnesty International has affirmed that not only have the Israeli authorities ignored the Committees recommendations, they have actually continued and intensified implementation of a policy of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and collective punishment against Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Torture During the Second Intifada
Since March 2002 in particular, violations of the Convention Against Torture have increased and become more systematic, with the Israeli army conducting two military operations involving incursions into and occupation of Palestinian residential areas.
According to several international human rigths organizations, Israel’s actions during “Operation Defensive Shield” -- carried out against Palestinians who are protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention -- breached the Convention Against Torture. 10
Hundreds of Palestinians were rounded up by Israeli soldiers during Israeli military operations in Palestinian cities and villages. Members of the Israeli army wrote numbers on the wrists of some of those arrested during the days immediately after 27 February. According to Amnesty International, the indiscriminate manner in which arrests were carried out, and the cruel, inhuman or degrading and painful treatment to which a large proportion of the male population was subjected violated Article 16 and in many cases Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture.
Consistent accounts by detainees who were released report cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; once arrested, detainees were blindfolded and handcuffed tightly with plastic handcuffs. According to Amensty International, the handcuffs (‘azikonim,’ or small shackles) used by the Israeli security services are in themselves a form of torture or ill-treatment. The plastic handcuffs tighten on the detainees’ wrists, causing intense pain; former detainees described their wrists becoming blue as a result of their tightening and adult men screaming with pain as they begged for them to be taken off. 11
Detainees were often forced to squat, sit or kneel for prolonged periods and were not permitted to go to the toilet -- they were eventually forced to relieve themselves on the ground where they sat, with their hands handcuffed behind their backs.
The Use of Human Shields
During the 2002 invasion of Jenin, several human rights organizations obtained testimony from residents of Jenin that they had been used as ‘human shields’ by the invading Israeli soldiers.12 In such cases, the civilian residents were forced, at gunpoint, to go ahead of soldiers, opening doors of homes the soldiers thought might be booby-trapped. One resident testified that soldiers had used his body as a gun rest.
The use of human shields by the Israeli military is in breach of Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture.
When questioned about this practice, Israeli army officials regularly issued blanket denials that they had forced civilians to act as human shields for Israeli soldiers. However, on 9 May 2002, in response to a petition brought to the High Court by a group of seven Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations, the IDF issued a statement saying that it was banning the use of civilians as human shields.
Torture of Palestinian children
The issue of torture or other ill treatment of children in Gush Etzion police station was raised in a report by B’tselem,13 the Israeli human rights organization.
The report reviewed the cases of ten children held in Gush Etzion between October 2000 and January 2001, and noted that interrogation methods commonly included severe beatings, dousing in cold water, putting the detainee’s head in a toilet bowl, threats and curses.
Ten months after B’tselem’s report and six months after the CAT specifically raised its concerns relating to Gush Etzion, Amnesty International declared that was still receiving reports of detainees, including children, being subjected to torture or other ill-treatment while detained at Gush Etzion police station.
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Last updated: March 2003 1 B’tselem
2 According to official IDF data
3 Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PACTI)
4 The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel
5 PCATI, September 2001
6 Ibid.
7 CAT/C/XXVII/Concl.5, paragraph 7 (i)
8 CAT/C/XXVII/Concl.5
9 CAT/C/XXVII/Concl.5, paragraph 7(c)
10 see, for example, Amnesty International, Briefing for the Committee Against Torture, 14 May 2002, MDE 15/075/2002
11 Ibid.
12 Amnesty International, Briefing for the Committee Against Torture, 14 May 2002, MDE 15/075/2002
13 B’tselem., Torture of Palestinian Minors in the Gush Etzion Police Station, July 2001
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