UN calls for full investigation into rights abuses against Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons

The United Nations has urged a thorough investigation into rights abuses against Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, after leaked video footage showed Israeli forces sexually assaulting a Palestinian inmate.

Farhan Haq, the UN deputy spokesperson, on Wednesday called for an in-depth investigation into reports of the systematic policy of torture by the Israeli regime and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees in its detention centers.

The comments came just a day after leading Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in a disturbing report that testimonies from 55 former Palestinian detainees revealed “inhuman conditions,” and that more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities were being used as “de facto torture camps.”

“All of these allegations of violations of basic human rights norms must be thoroughly investigated and there should be accountability,” stressed the UN official during a press conference, when asked for a comment on the report by B'Tselem.

“We also believe that whenever human rights norms are violated to this extent, there needs to be follow up. Our human rights colleagues dealing with Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory will continue to follow up on all of these allegations,” Haq further emphasized.

B'Tselem had enumerated several acts by prison wardens, including “arbitrary violence, sexual assault, humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation, sleep deprivation ... and the denial of adequate medical treatment.”

Leaked video shows Israeli forces sexually assaulting Palestinian inmate

Leaked video footage from surveillance cameras shows a group of Israeli reservist soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza in the notorious Israeli detention camp Sde Teiman.

Aired by Israeli Channel 12, leaked footage from surveillance cameras revealed the appalling conditions of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, showing a group of Israeli forces sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at a detention center in the southern part of the 1948 occupied lands.

The report said the detainee was bleeding and was taken to hospital after several hours, where his condition was described as “complex.”

The Israeli military is believed to have detained thousands of Palestinians, including women, children and medics, ever since it started its devastating ground and aerial offensives against Gaza. Those released have shown signs of torture.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their illegal detention.

Israel keeps Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

Human rights organizations say Israel continues to violate all rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws. 

Israel has killed 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza since October: Media office

The Government Media Office in Gaza said the figure is part of the overall death toll of more than 39,000 people.

Separately, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese said in a statement that the inhuman behavior of the Israeli forces toward Palestinian children was war crime.

She also said Israeli authorities commit crimes as they are certain that they will not be prosecuted, stressing, “There are no words to describe the crimes committed by the Zionist military against the Palestinian prisoners.”

Last month, the Government Media Office in the besieged Gaza Strip said Israel had killed at least 16,000 children in the war-torn territory since October 7, when the occupying entity waged its brutal war on the Palestinian territory.

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