ICSPR: Calls for Holding Israel Accountable for Crimes of Torture Against Prisoners and Detainees in the Prisons of the Israeli Occupation

Date: 26 June 2025

Press Release

On the Occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

ICSPR: Calls for Holding Israel Accountable for Crimes of Torture Against Prisoners and Detainees in the Prisons of the Israeli Occupation

Today, Thursday, 26 June 2025, marks the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution No. 52/149 dated 12 December 1997. This day is commemorated annually with the aim of completely eradicating torture and ensuring the effectiveness of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

This day comes as the Palestinian territories witness an unprecedented escalation in arbitrary arrest campaigns against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the use of torture, cruel and degrading treatment by the Israeli occupation authorities against prisoners and detainees in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, especially in the aftermath of the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since 7 October 2023. The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) has documented a series of crimes and grave violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip that amount to the level of systematic torture crimes, including physical assaults, forced stripping of detainees, sexual harassment and rape, and the denial of legal rights and guarantees — particularly of those detained in temporary detention camps inside Gaza, where more than 13,000 detainees, including women and children, have been held in illegal facilities. These detainees have been subjected to forced stripping of clothing, denial of food, water, and medical care, physical assaults, denial of family visits, abuse, and verbal humiliation — in clear violation of the Convention against Torture and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949.

As for the West Bank, the frequency of arbitrary arrests and nightly raids has increased, accompanied by acts of abuse and field torture, especially in the governorates of Jenin, Nablus, Hebron, and Tubas. According to data from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, more than 9,300 Palestinians have been arrested from 7 October to June 2025. Hundreds of them were subjected to various forms of physical and psychological torture during interrogation in detention centers, most notably in Al-Moskobiyya, Al-Jalama, and Ashkelon.

Documentation by ICSPR and reports by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs indicate that no fewer than 72 prisoners have died inside prisons since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza, including at least 45 detainees from Gaza, without any independent investigations being opened into the causes of their death. Among them, 25 prisoners died during the past year alone, the majority as a result of medical neglect or torture — the highest death rate recorded in two decades.

Accordingly, the number of martyrs in Israeli prisons since 1967 has risen to 309. It is worth mentioning that Israel currently detains 10,400 Palestinians in its prisons, including 49 women — among them 8 administrative detainees (held without charge), 440 children, and 3,562 administrative detainees.

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) affirms that this occasion is an important opportunity to expose and denounce the torture crimes committed by the Zionist occupation against the Palestinian people inside its prisons and detention and arrest centers. It is also an opportunity to shed light on the magnitude of their ongoing suffering and the depth of their physical and psychological pain, which would not have persisted had it not been for the absence of accountability for the perpetrators of these crimes. This lack of accountability encourages the Israeli occupation to continue using torture as a tool of repression and collective punishment. ICSPR also confirms that opposing torture is not merely a slogan, but rather a legal and ethical obligation that requires the international community to fulfill and demands urgent international action to protect the Palestinian people and bring justice to the victims of torture and grave violations. Accordingly, ICSPR calls for the following:

• The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) calls for a serious investigation by the permanent United Nations fact-finding committee and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court into the systematic violations of the Israeli occupation against Palestinian detainees, especially in the detention camps for detainees from the Gaza Strip, and into the practice of enforced disappearances and brutal torture against them.

• The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) calls on the international community, the United Nations, and third-party states to provide international protection for prisoners and detainees in the prisons of the occupation and to pressure the occupying state of Israel to stop crimes of torture and medical neglect against them.

• The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) calls on the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture, arbitrary detention, and human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories to visit the occupied territories and conduct field investigations into these violations, and to exert genuine international pressure on the occupying state to commit to the Convention against Torture, which it signed in 1991, and to stop all forms of torture and inhumane treatment against prisoners and Palestinian civilians.

• The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR) calls on the free people of the world and international human rights organizations to launch the widest possible solidarity and advocacy campaign for the prisoners in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, in a manner that ensures pressure on third-party states to play their role in opposing the crime of torture against Palestinians.