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UN Report Details Israel's 'De Facto State Policy' of Torturing Palestinian Prisoners
A United Nations committee found Palestinian prisoners are regularly deprived of food and water and subjected to attacks by dogs, electrocution, and sexual abuse.
Nov 29, 2025
Reports of Israeli authorities torturing Palestinian prisoners have been publicized for years, with freed detainees describing frequent beatings, attacks by dogs, and rape and sexual abuse, and the United Nations Committee Against Torture now says Palestinians have been victimized by a "de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture."
Both Palestinian and Israeli rights groups gave reports to the committee on conditions in Israeli detention centers, detailing Israel's regular deprivation of food and water for detainees as well as the "severe beatings," electrocution, waterboarding. and sexual violence Israeli guards and other authorities perpetrate.
A state policy of torturing prisoners constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the committee said.
Peter Vedel Kessing, a member of the committee and a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, told the BBC the panel was "deeply appalled" by the accounts they heard, and expressed concern about the lack of investigations and prosecutions following allegations of torture.
The de facto policy of torture in Israel's has "gravely intensified" since Israel began bombarding Gaza after a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the report found. Despite a ceasefire that was agreed to in October, those retaliatory attacks against the exclave are continuing and still constitute a genocide, Amnesty International said this week.
Friday's UN report, said progressive Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, provided the latest proof that "Israel's insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused."
The UN committee found that at least 75 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the Gaza war began—an "abnormally high" death toll which "appears to have exclusively affected the Palestinian detainee population."
"To date, no state officials have been held responsible or accountable for such deaths," said the panel.
"Israel's insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused."
The report comes nearly two weeks after the Israel-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights released an analysis showing that at least 98 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023.
The UN committee noted that Israel's use of "administrative detention," in which roughly 3,474 Palestinians are currently being held without trial, has reached an "unprecedented" level in the last two years, with children among those who have been imprisoned without charges.
Child prisoners, some of whom are under the age of 12—despite 12 being the age of criminal responsibility in Israel—“have severe restrictions on family contact, may be held in solitary confinement, and do not have access to education, in violation of international standards," the report says.
The report was released the same day the UN Human Rights Office accused Israeli soldiers of carrying out a "summary execution" of two Palestinian men who were seen with their hands up—indicating surrender—in the West Bank.
The committee emphasized its "serious concern" that Israel has no "distinct offense criminalizing torture, and that its legislation allows public officials to be exempted from criminal culpability under the so-called 'necessity' defense when unlawful physical pressure is applied during interrogations."
The report was released days after Israel was one of just three countries—along with the US and Argentina—that voted against a UN General Assembly resolution against torture.
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After 9 Months of 'Israel's Abuse,' US Teen Mohammed Ibrahim Freed From Detention
While expressing relief, the 16-year-old's uncle noted the "hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison."
Nov 27, 2025
"Words can't describe the immense relief we have as a family right now," said Zeyad Kadur, the uncle of Mohammed Ibrahim, the 16-year-old Palestinian-American who was finally released on Thursday after over nine months in Israeli detention.
In February, Israeli forces arrested the Florida resident, then 15, at a family home in the illegally occupied West Bank over allegations that he threw rocks at Israeli settlers. Ibrahim's release follows a monthslong pressure campaign from his relatives, rights groups, and American lawmakers, who have specifically urged President Donald Trump to demand the US citizen's freedom.
"Israeli soldiers had no right to take Mohammed from us in the first place," said Kadur. "For more than nine months, our family has been living a horrific and endless nightmare, particularly Mohammed's mother and father, who haven't been able to see or touch their youngest child for nearly a year, all while knowing Israeli soldiers were beating him and starving him."
"We couldn't believe Mohammed was free until his parents wrapped their arms around him and felt him safe," he continued. "Right now, we are focused on getting Mohammed the immediate medical attention he needs after being subjected to Israel's abuse and inhumane conditions for months. We just want Mohammed to be healthy and to have his childhood back."
According to the Guardian, which first exposed Ibrahim's case in July: "Relatives said he was taken to a hospital for intravenous therapy and blood work immediately after his release, and noted he is severely underweight, pale, and is still suffering from scabies contracted during his detention. Ibrahim had lost a quarter of his body weight in detention, his family said."
Kadur said Thursday that "we'd like to thank the more than a hundred organizations, local Florida community members, volunteers, and members of Congress who continued to speak up for Mohammed and demand his immediate freedom. We are also deeply grateful to the countless people who refused to stop telling Mohammed's story, and to those who called their representatives every single day to demand they act to free him. Thank you for bringing Mohammed's story to the American people and the world."
The uncle added:
There are hundreds of children like Mohammed, unjustly trapped in an Israeli military prison, being subjected to Israel's abuse and torture. No mother, father, parent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, or child should ever have to go through what Mohammed just went through. As we support Mohammed and are beyond relieved he is free, we will continue to demand justice for Sayfollah Musallet, an American and Mohammed's first cousin, who was beaten to death and murdered by a mob of Israeli settlers on July 11, 2025. We expect the American government to protect our families.
Mohammed was forced to spend his 16th birthday unjustly imprisoned by Israel, separated from the people who love him. Now that Mohammed is with his family, we can finally wish him a happy birthday. His mom, Muna, can prepare his favorite meal and be with her son. We are proud of Mohammed and love him dearly. The family requests time to be with their son after this painful experience.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding shared Kadur's statement and also called for justice for Musallet.
Ibrahim's freedom came as people in the United States celebrated Thanksgiving.
"Something to be thankful for today: Mohammed Ibrahim freed from captivity," wrote Drop Site News' Ryan Grim on social media.
US Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) similarly said, "On a day of thanksgiving we are so grateful Mohammed Ibrahim is on his way home."
Robert McCaw, government affairs director at the largest US Muslim rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "Mohamed’s homecoming is a blessing, but it does not erase the torture and suffering he endured."
"The US government has a responsibility to investigate Israel's abuse of an American citizen and ensure that no other child—American or Palestinian—is subjected to the same treatment," McCaw added.
The US government provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, and has continued to do so over the past two years, as Israeli forces have waged a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip—a genocide that "is not over," despite last month's ceasefire agreement, as Amnesty International highlighted in a Thursday briefing. Amid that assault, there has also been a surge in Israeli soldiers' and settlers' violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
"Mohammed should have spent this year studying for his learner's permit and enjoying time with his family—not locked in a military prison, beaten, starved, and terrified. His release is cause for celebration, but it must also be a turning point," said CAIR's Florida chapter. "The US cannot continue providing unchecked support to a government that tortures American children."
"CAIR and CAIR-FL are calling on the US State Department, members of Congress, faith leaders, and civil society organizations to press for a full, public accounting of Mohammed's treatment and to demand concrete consequences for the Israeli officials responsible," the group added. "The organizations also reaffirm their commitment to supporting Mohamed and his family as he recovers from the trauma of his imprisonment and to advocating for all children subjected to abuse under Israel's military system."
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Will We Give Birth to a Loving or Shackled Future?
A tale of two births challenges us to consider what kind of world we want to create.
Nov 17, 2025
It occurs to me that “giving birth to the future” isn’t simply a metaphor.
I say this as I continue wrestling with infinity—that is to say, working on the book project I began a decade ago: a book about creating peace. My exploration into all this goes beyond politics, global or otherwise. There are countless ways that humanity needs to change and, indeed, is changing. For instance:
For much of the 20th century, the childbirth process in this country didn’t invite a lot of active participation from parents. Mothers in labor were given heavy doses of drugs, and fathers were banished to waiting rooms.
So wrote David Colker in the Los Angeles Times in 2015, shortly after the death of Elisabeth Bing (at age at 100!), the German-born woman who cofounded Lamaze International in 1960 and helped profoundly change the way we birth the future. When she was a young woman, Bing, then living in England, began working as a physical therapist in a hospital. This, Colker wrote, was “when she first viewed childbirth. It was being treated more like a disease, she thought, than a joyous occasion.”
I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am that I was present at my daughter’s birth nearly 40 years ago—not just present but, oh God, part of it.
She helped bring caring and sanity—and love—into the birth process for many (though not all) women, and for men as well, for which I cry hallelujah. Suddenly dads could now be part of the birth process beyond passing out cigars. That’s not even a joke anymore; men, if they’re involved in their child’s birth, have a role larger than sitting in a room with the other soon-to-be dads, waiting for the doc to come in and cry, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy.”
Empowering both women and men—and partnering them—has helped launch a social shift that’s still in progress, bringing men into the core of nurturing, the family’s loving center. I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am that I was present at my daughter’s birth nearly 40 years ago—not just present but, oh God, part of it.
I came home for lunch that day in July and there was Barbara out in the backyard, radiant and excited, weeding the coleus bed. She told me that her water had just broken. She also was feeling slight contractions—light, easy things that mainly seemed to amuse her. They were delightful curiosities. Neither of us was really sure this was true labor, but there was all that fluid leaking all over her panties. We went to the hospital. Almost immediately, Barbara’s contractions turned serious. She went into active labor, and I went into my role as breath-and-contraction helper. Her back pain was severe, but I was always with her, pressing my hand as hard as possible against her back, giving her relief with my counterpressure and breathing—“ahee, ahoo!”—along with her. This lasted about six hours. It was the longest six hours of both our lives.
The only time it got close to desperate was well into the evening. “Talk me out of using drugs,” she begged me. I knew she could make it and gave her all the encouragement I could muster. Turns out she was moving along beautifully. By 8:30 pm she was fully dilated.
Then came the most intense part of the process, the pushing. She was at this for nearly two and a half hours, from 8:30 till the birth at 10:50. In this phase, I added a new duty to the man’s role. I was the guy who counted to 10 during each push. She usually got three pushes in per contraction at this stage. Later—as I saw the hair on the baby’s head appear at the vaginal opening—my role became more than just counter. My encouragement became intense, and linked to the rhythm of Barbara’s pushing. “Come on, Barbara, down and out. Down and out! DOWN AND OUT! COME ON, BARBARA!”
When our daughter finally arrived, I cut the umbilical cord. The nurse put the baby up on Barbara’s stomach, and later I held her, danced around with her. We had brought a radio with us, as our Lamaze teacher had advised: Bring music! As I held Alison Grace, Ravi Shankar began playing the sitar. And our squalling newborn became silent in my arms.
“A gentle birth,” writes Barbara Harper, “takes place when a woman is supported by the people she chooses to be with her during this most intimate time. She needs to be loved and nurtured by those around her.”
But there’s also another type of future we also continue to birth: “My feet were still shackled together, and I couldn’t get my legs apart.”
Beyond the intense torture inflicted on the mother, what in God’s name have we just done to the child?
The words are those of a woman, given the pseudonym Maria Jones, quoted some years ago in an Amnesty International report. She was pregnant and had been arrested for violating a drug law. She was in jail in Cook County, Illinois. When she went into labor, she was handcuffed and shackled to her bed.
“The doctor came and said that yes, this baby is coming right now,” she said, “and started to prepare the bed for delivery. Because I was shackled to the bed, they couldn't remove the lower part of the bed for the delivery, and they couldn't put my feet in the stirrups. My feet were still shackled together, and I couldn't get my legs apart. The doctor called for the officer, but the officer had gone down the hall. No one else could unlock the shackles, and my baby was coming but I couldn't open my legs.”
“Finally, the officer came and unlocked the shackles from my ankles. My baby was born then. I stayed in the delivery room with my baby for a little while, but then the officer put the leg shackles and handcuffs back on me and I was taken out of the delivery room.”
No bonding. No nurturing at the breast. The traumatized infant is whisked off to some antiseptic holding pen to lie alone in its cold new world. This isn’t rational. It’s not even sane. Beyond the intense torture inflicted on the mother, what in God’s name have we just done to the child?
Shackled births were banned in Cook County some years ago, shortly after the Amnesty report was made public. But they were only allowed—indeed, the norm—in the first place because the prisoner-mom, as well as the child, had been dehumanized, in the name of the law, no less. This is the legacy we still must transcend. We owe it to the future.
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