A United Nations expert on Tuesday delivered a report offering evidence of systemic torture, brutality, and sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli captivity.

Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said she had gathered substantial evidence of torture and sexual violence committed by Israeli authorities against Arab citizens of Israel as well as Palestinian detainees from Gaza and the West Bank.

After Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, Israel not only launched a military assault on Gaza but also introduced emergency detention measures that Edwards argued “exposed Palestinian detainees to torture, potentially unlawful deaths, incommunicado detention, and degrading conditions.”

Among other things, Edwards’ report documents nine allegations of “rape, attempted rape, and threats of rape”; eleven allegations of “beatings, grabbing, electrocution, or mauling by dogs” of male detainees’ genitals; 23 allegations of “beatings with weapons or other objects, kicking, and punching”; five allegations of electrocution by electric batons or other devices; and four allegations of forced kneeling for periods lasting up to a full day.

The report also notes that 94 Palestinians died in custody from October 2023 through August 2025, although it acknowledges that “a lack of transparency into the cause of these deaths makes it unclear which deaths are attributed to natural causes or unlawful conduct.”

However, the report cites a review of 10 postmortem examinations of detainees who died in Israeli custody which found signs of physical abuse in five cases, and signs of bruising “consistent with beatings and use of restraints” in two cases.

“Findings also included multiple rib fractures, hemorrhages on the skin and near internal organs, and lacerations of intra-abdominal organs,” the report adds. “One case documented intracranial hemorrhage resulting from a head injury apparently sustained during arrest.”

Edwards said that the sheer volume of torture and abuse allegations documented in the report cannot be written off as the work of rogue actors.

“It is my view that the number and cruelty of allegations compiled portray gross disregard by Israel of its duty to treat all detainees humanely and without discrimination,” she said, “and this has encouraged, tolerated, and condoned torture and ill-treatment, at times with support at ministerial and functional levels.”

The descriptions of torture in Edwards’ report echo recent reporting by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote that his interviews with Palestinian detainees revealed “a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, woman, and even children—by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.”

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