In the report ‘Torture and genocide : Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese – A/HRC/61/71‘, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 examines the systematic use by Israel of torture against Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territory since 7 October 2023, encompassing custodial and non-custodial practices that meet the threshold for genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

She documents how torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and the destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering. A continuous, territorially pervasive regime of psychological terror is being imposed, designed to break bodies, deprive a people of their dignity and force them from their land. This is not incidental violence. It is the architecture of settler-colonialism, built on a foundation of dehumanization and maintained by a policy of cruelty and collective torture.

Links:
VN-rapporteur Albanese: Israël martelt de Palestijnen structureel als collectieve wraak

United Nations Human Rights Council Sixty-first session