An unpublished United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) report claims that Palestinians detained from Gaza were subjected to various kinds of torture and abuse by Israeli forces. Some of them were also forced to make false confessions about their links with Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group.
According to the report reviewed by Reuters and other news agencies, some UNRWA staff members were pressured to make false statements about being involved in the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood attacks on October 7 inside Israel in which over 1,100 people were killed.
These UNRWA workers have claimed that they were severely beaten up and waterboarded and were threatened that their family members would be harmed.
The report records the testimonies of Palestinian detainees from Gaza who claimed they were tortured by the Israeli forces during their detention. They were allegedly beaten, sexually abused and humiliated, and subjected to various other forms of torture such as attacks by dogs. Some of the Palestinian detainees were also killed due to deliberate denial of necessary medical treatment by the Israeli forces, the report claims.
The 11-page document prepared in February is reportedly based on the testimonies provided by around 100 Palestinians from among the 1,000 released from Israeli detention without any charge.
Israel had detained a large number of Palestinians who had been working in the country following the October 7 attacks. Its forces also detained thousands of Palestinians from Gaza following its ground invasion. Several pictures of Palestinians detainees who were stripped naked by Israeli forces had been circulated in the media, leading to widespread condemnation of their treatment.
There have been several other reports which indicate that Palestinians detainees have been beaten, humiliated in different ways, and burnt with cigarettes by Israeli forces.
UNRWA communication director Juliette Touma told Reuters last week that the report would be handed over to various UN agencies for further action. “When the war comes to an end there needs to be a series of inquiries to look into all violations of human rights” she claimed.
Israel wants to shut down UNRWA
Without providing any evidence, Israel alleged in January that 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks. Following these allegations, many western donors suspended funding to the UN refugee agency.
According to reports, nearly half of its over $1 billion total budget was affected due to the suspension of funding by some of its most prominent donors such as the US. This affected UNRWA’s work in Gaza in the middle of the Israeli war which has killed over 31,000 Palestinians and injured over 72,000. UNRWA is the primary relief agency in Gaza and provides shelter and other essential services to more than half of the nearly two million displaced Palestinians.
The US and other western countries decided to suspend their funding despite UNRWA responding promptly to the allegations, suspending some of its employees, and establishing an independent internal UN investigation.
Media reports stated that Israel admitted that it had no concrete evidence of the role of UNRWA workers in the October 7 attacks. However, it has leveled a fresh allegation that over 450 UNRWA staff are members of Hamas.
Israel’s repeated attacks on UNRWA are part of its attempts to force the agency to shut its operations. Observers have noted that UNRWA’s work among Palestinian refugees threatens the Zionist project as its mandate is based on the “right to return” of those refugees and their descendants.
