Palestinian authorities must stop practices of arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment

The UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory condemns the Palestinian authorities’ continued use of arbitrary detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment against Palestinians detained in the West Bank for “security reasons”, including journalists, dissidents, and political activists.

Palestinian authorities continue to arbitrarily or unlawfully deprive dozens of Palestinians of liberty — many are reportedly detained under a law that was declared unconstitutional by the Palestinian Supreme Constitutional Court. UN Human Rights – OPT has also gathered information on several male prisoners, including children, who continued to be detained by Palestinian security forces despite courts having ordered their release.

Some detainees in Palestinian detention facilities have reported torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including painful stress positions, severe beatings and whippings, and prolonged solitary confinement. Detainees who reported torture and ill-treatment frequently referred to experiencing suspension in a position known in Arabic as “shabeh”, where their hands are shackled behind their backs, and they are suspended from the ceiling by their wrists for days at a time.

Over the years, the Palestinian authorities have worked closely with our Office and made some advancements, including legal reforms and increased engagement with the UN Committee Against Torture. However, much more needs to be done to guarantee the rights and dignity of Palestinian detainees.

The Palestinian authorities must immediately stop all forms of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees and all arbitrary or unlawful detention. Those deprived of liberty must be treated with humanity and respect for their dignity. Among others, they must be provided with regular outdoor access, sufficient living space to prevent overcrowding, and adequate food, medical care, clothing, and sanitation facilities and hygiene conditions. They must also be entitled to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a court.

Palestinian authorities must also conduct prompt, thorough, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and hold perpetrators to account.

To prevent recurrence, we call upon the Government of the State of Palestine to operationalize commitments taken within the National Commission against Torture, and under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and establish a National Preventive Mechanism with a mandate to regularly inspect places of detention.

Urgent action needed to protect Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya 
 

UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory calls on the Israeli Government to urgently protect Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and ensure his safety, dignity, and physical integrity. The Israeli Government must immediately release Dr. Abu Safiya, or promptly charge him with a recognizable criminal offence and grant him a fair trial. In the meantime, he must be urgently transferred to a civilian hospital to ensure that he receives life-saving medical care.

Dr. Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has been held in Israeli custody since December 2024 under Israel's Unlawful Combatant Law, without charge or trial. He was arrested at the hospital after refusing to evacuate while treating critical patients.

According to his lawyers, Dr. Abu Safiya appears to be at imminent risk of death. Information available to UN Human Rights - OPT indicates he has been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement, repeated severe assaults resulting in grave injuries, and denial of medical care.

His case raises serious concerns under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including the prohibition of torture, the right to liberty and security, the right to be brought to justice in a process respecting fair trial guarantees, and the protections afforded to medical personnel during armed conflict.

Despite several appeals to Israeli courts challenging the legality of Dr. Abu Safiya’s detention, the courts have so far failed to protect his rights under international law, compounding concerns about the effectiveness of the Israeli judicial safeguards and remedies in relation to Palestinian detainees. Dr. Abu Safiya’s lawyers also stated that he was assaulted in detention in retribution for these legal actions.

Thirteen other senior doctors remain in Israeli detention without charge. Around 9,300 Palestinians are currently in Israeli custody, including thousands held arbitrarily without charge or trial. UN Human Rights OPT documentation indicates that torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees is widespread and systematic. At least 91 Palestinians have died in Israeli detention since 7 October 2023, including several dying due to torture and ill-treatment, according to credible information.

Israel must ensure that its laws governing the detention of Palestinians living under occupation comply with international legal norms and standards, including the prohibition of arbitrary detention and fair trial guarantees, and that its detention officials abide by those standards. All arbitrarily detained Palestinians must be released with immediate effect.

The Israeli Government must immediately and urgently end all forms of torture and ill-treatment against Palestinian detainees. We urge Israel to grant independent medical experts, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and human rights monitors unhindered access to places of detention.

Four-month-old Ahmed Marouf Zaid died yesterday after Israeli soldiers refused to open a gate blocking the main entrance to his village west of Ramallah, delaying his access to urgent medical care. An ambulance was waiting on the other side.

"Last month, 7-month-old Sam Abu Haykal was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint. Yesterday, a critically ill 4-month-old was forced to wait for urgent medical care just steps from an ambulance. Both deaths are senseless, and both are emblematic of an occupying power continuing to show utter disregard for the humanity and rights of Palestinians living under occupation," said Ajith Sunghay, Head of UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

According to OCHA, road gates like the one closed to Ahmed’s family make up 41% of the 925 Israeli movement obstacles that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of 3.4 million Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.

Summary execution continues a pattern of unlawful killings in Gaza

The UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory condemns the killing of a Palestinian man accused of collaborating with Israeli forces by a group affiliated with Hamas on Wednesday, 1 July 2026. According to a statement by a group which self-identifies as the “Resistance Security”, the man was executed “after exhausting all revolutionary procedures”, raising concerns that the killing amounts to summary and extrajudicial execution.

This recent execution continues a pattern of unlawful killings by de facto authorities in Gaza and units in pro-Hamas security forces of dozens of Palestinians since the announcement of a ceasefire in October 2025, mostly in the first month. The killings largely targeted Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israeli forces, or of working with armed elements that are apparently funded, armed, and backed by Israel.

UN Human Rights – OPT is also concerned about reports of ill-treatment and torture by members of these armed units or individuals affiliated with Hamas. This included abuses against Palestinians allegedly collaborating with the Israeli forces, as well as others suspected of criminal activity. Several Palestinians in Gaza also publicly reported receiving threats by armed men affiliated with Hamas ahead of protests that were planned on 26 June 2026 against Hamas.

The climate of fear and intimidation is compounding an already catastrophic situation in which Israeli forces have continued attacks that have so far killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since the ceasefire announcement in October 2025. Israeli forces also continue to apparently target members of the de facto police personnel, consistent with a pattern of dismantling law enforcement and administrative governance in Gaza. This appears to amount to a pattern of attacks on civilians, and has deepened the sense of chaos and lawlessness at a time when Israeli forces also continue to push westward, squeezing Palestinians into a fraction of the strip and displacing even more Palestinians from their homes and tents every day.

Unlawful killings, torture, and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment constitute war crimes and grave violations of international human rights law. De facto authorities in Gaza are bound by human rights obligations and restrictions on the conduct of law enforcement, as well as the applicable rules of international humanitarian law. They must put in place measures to prevent human rights violations by members of their security forces or individuals affiliated with them, investigate all reports of unlawful killings, torture, and ill-treatment, and hold perpetrators accountable.

UN Human Rights - Palestine's documentation indicates widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment against Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody.

Patterns of torture and ill-treatment have also been documented against Palestinian detainees in the custody of Palestinian security forces. There are also concerns about reports of torture and ill-treatment at the hands of de facto authorities, armed groups and other armed elements in Gaza.

Human dignity is an inalienable right. The prohibition of torture is absolute regardless of the identity of the victim or the perpetrator. Justice for victims is a right, not a privilege.

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Surviving childhood under occupation - The catastrophic harm facing Palestinian children

Israeli violence is subjecting Palestinian children to catastrophic levels of harm: killed, maimed, displaced, and living in perpetual insecurity.

On Saturday, 6 June 2026, Israeli security forces shot and killed 7-month-old Sam Fahed Abu Haykal in his parents’ car near a Hebron checkpoint. The bullet appears to have passed through Sam’s head and injured both his parents. Video footage analysed by an Israeli human rights organisation shows a member of the Israeli security forces shooting at the car as it was slowing down, posing no threat, and clearly indicates that he provided no aid to the family afterwards.

Sam is one of 241 children killed by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since 7 October 2023, as verified by the UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OHCHR OPT). This is in addition to over 21,000 children who have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza in the same period, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with killings continuing after the announcement of a ceasefire in October 2025.

Since the ceasefire announcement, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported the killing of 981 Palestinians in Israeli attacks in Gaza. OHCHR OPT has so far verified the killing of 574 Palestinians during this period, including 183 children, five of whom were infants under the age of one.

On 4 February 2026, Israeli forces opened fire on an encampment for displaced people in Al Tuffah, Gaza City, killing five Palestinians, including two women and two baby girls: 5-month-old Mira Al Khabbaz and Watein Al Khabbaz, born less than a week before.

Forty-eight of the 183 verified child fatalities after the ceasefire announcement were victims of incidents in which only children were killed, raising concerns about Israeli forces directly targeting Palestinian children. Fifteen women have also been killed in incidents in which only women, or only women and children, were killed.

On 29 October 2025, an Israeli airstrike hit a tent housing displaced people in Al Mawasi, Khan Younis, and killed three Palestinians: two brothers aged eight and 11, and their 15-year-old sister. On 31 January 2026, an Israeli strike hit a residential building in western Gaza City, killing two women aged 60 and 23, and three sisters aged five, seven and nine. On 2 February 2026, Israeli Naval Forces killed one Palestinian, a 2-year-old boy, in his tent on the coast of Al Mawasi, Khan Younis.

In the West Bank, the 241 verified child fatalities represent nearly one in five of the 1,103 Palestinian victims killed by Israeli security forces and settlers since 7 October 2023.

In March 2026, three months before the shooting that killed 7-month-old Sam in Hebron, a similar attack in Tammun, south of Tubas, killed four family members in their car. At the time, Israeli security forces opened fire on a Palestinian vehicle, killing a father, Ali Bani Odeh, a mother, Wa’ad Bani Odeh, and their 5- and 6-year-old sons, Mohammad and Othman. Two children survived the shooting, aged eight and 11, but later reported that they were assaulted by Israeli security forces when they left the car.

Most of the children killed in the West Bank are teenage boys, 213 out of 241. In many cases, subsequent statements by Israeli authorities accuse the children of having engaged in stone-throwing as a justification. In all OHCHR OPT-verified killings of minors involved in confrontations with Israeli security forces, our assessment is that none posed an imminent threat to life —the only legal justification for the use of lethal force in the occupied West Bank under international law. Where less harmful means were available, such lethal force may constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life and, in the context of occupation, may amount to willful killing, a war crime.

On 20 December 2025, a member of Israeli security forces hiding behind a wall shot and killed 16-year-old Rayan Abu Mulla in Qabatiya, south of Jenin, on his way home. An official Israeli statement claimed Rayan was throwing stones. However, according to witnesses and CCTV footage, he was walking empty-handed. Israeli security forces also prevented ambulances from assisting Rayan. They then took his body away and refused to hand it over for burial.

OHCHR OPT’s analysis demonstrates a pattern of Israeli security forces preventing medical assistance to injured Palestinians and withholding bodies, including those of children.

Children are civilians and have special protections under international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The routine assault on their right to life, safety, and liberty in the Occupied Palestinian Territory at this massive scale points to war crimes.

“From newborns to teenagers, Palestinian children have not been spared extraordinary levels of Israeli violence. The pattern, at a minimum, shows a dangerous scale of dehumanisation and disregard for Palestinian lives,” said Ajith Sunghay, Head of UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Palestinian children must be able to grow up in safety, with the same rights and protections as children anywhere else in the world. Surviving childhood should never be this difficult.”

We are increasingly concerned about repeated reports of violent activity by Palestinian armed elements in Gaza that appear to be backed by Israeli forces.
Tuesday morning, 9 June, members of these armed elements established a checkpoint near Wadi Gaza on Salah Al Dein Street in central Gaza and detained several Palestinians, including seven ambulance crew members from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). Five were released later. The remaining two were taken to an unknown location. As of today, their fate and whereabouts remain unknown according to PRCS.  
This is unacceptable, and these healthcare workers must immediately be released.
As an occupying power, Israel has obligations to ensure public order and safety in Gaza, and to refrain from, as well as prevent, such violations of international law, including the obstruction of medical services.