UNRWA reports reveals Israel’s abuse on Gaza prisoners
The main UN agency assisting Palestinians carried out a report, published on March 3, which concluded that hundreds of Palestinians banged up in Gaza were subject to Israeli abuse.
Israel has been rampant in Gaza and have killed nearly 31,000 civilians and their actions have caused the internal displacement of roughly 85% of the population.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) interviewed a significant number of Gazan detainees, 1,000 of whom were released last month, who endured all sorts of horrific treatment by Israel’s authorities.
The 100 that the UNRWA interviewed noted that whilst detained in “makeshift facilities”, they were beaten, stripped, robbed, tortured , sexually assaulted and denied access to lawyers and medical personnel.
It is believed that the authorities used these barbaric methods so that prisoners would make confessions and due to perceived links to militant group Hamas.
The UNRWA report discusses, “a range of ill-treatment that Gazans of all ages, abilities and backgrounds have reported facing in makeshift detention facilities in Israel”.
In early December last year, footage of Gaza residents being stripped by Israeli forces sparked outrage on the airwaves and social media.
It was said that they were also believed to be linked with the Palestinian militants and that the Israeli forces’ methods were a way of humiliating them.
READ: Israel detains 40 Palestinians, including former prisoners
An official from Hamas’ political bureau then dismissed claims that they were in any way associated to the group and that these remarks were “unfounded lies”.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, British and American NGOs respectively, have also found similar cases of prisoner abuses which have been occurring since Israel’s war on the caged Gaza Strip, which started at the beginning of October.
In December 2023, it was alleged that there were 8,000 Palestinians from Gaza and other occupied territories languishing in Israeli jails.
The number of those banged up is now estimated to be at 3,000, almost all of whom have not been granted access to lawyers according to the UNRWA.
On March 4, the agency said that had been arresting and torturing some of its workers, tricking them into making false admissions about the agency’s ties to Hamas.
“Some of our staff have conveyed to UNRWA teams that they were forced to (make) confessions under torture and ill-treatment. These false confessions were in response to questioning about relations between UNRWA and Hamas and involvement in the 7 October attack against Israel” UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said.
Allegations against a dozen UNRWA employees being involved in the Hamas attacks resulted in a mass exodus of Western funding.
The agency’s chief Philippe Lazzarini took action following the accusations and sacked 10 of his employees, citing that his organisation was already under a lot of pressure. The UNRWA claimed that the two who were also allegedly involved in the assault had been killed.
UNRWA/ The New York Times/ CNN
