Is UN torture expert overlooking Israeli abuses?

Alice Jill Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, speaks during a press conference in Ukraine in September 2023.
Ukrinform ABACA

Last week, the UN special rapporteur on torture visited the Israeli towns attacked on 7 October 2023.

As rumors that a ceasefire deal was near swirled in the media, Alice Jill Edwards reiterated her call for the “immediate and unconditional release of the hostages” held in Gaza since that date.

“This is an unlawful act under international law. It’s an atrocity. It’s a war crime,” she said.

Edwards told Reuters that she “had written to the Palestinian Authority about independent and verifiable reports of sexual torture and violence that occurred,” the agency reported, paraphrasing the UN expert.

Edwards added that she would speak to Israeli officials about allegations of torture and abuse of Palestinians in its detention centers.

But Palestinian human rights groups say that Edwards has ignored their extensive documentation of the “widespread use of sexual violence as a form of torture against Palestinian prisoners and detainees.”

“Lack of meaningful action”

In a letter signed by the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council and the Palestinian Non-governmental Organizations Network, the groups call out “what we perceive as a lack of meaningful action, responsiveness and impartiality” regarding Israeli abuses.

They say that they will no longer engage with Edwards due to her failure to acknowledge “the lived realities of Palestinians.”

The groups point out that Israel is holding the highest number of Palestinian prisoners in its history – more than doubling the number of Palestinians held before October 2023. And this doesn’t include the “thousands of Palestinians abducted from Gaza by Israeli forces and held in ad hoc military detention camps.”

Not only has the number of Palestinians held by Israel sharply increased. “The scale and severity of crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners and detainees in every phase of their custody” has dramatically escalated too, the Palestinian groups say.

At least 49 Palestinians have been killed or died in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023, though “the actual number is likely to be higher,” the rights groups add.

The groups said that a confidential submission detailing the widespread use of sexual torture against Palestinian prisoners and detainees was given to Edwards. But she did not co-sign statements from fellow UN special rapporteurs “highlighting its use against Palestinians, including women and girls.”

Nor did Edwards include the information provided by Palestinian human rights groups and the Palestinian Authority regarding Israel’s use of sexual torture in her latest thematic report to the UN General Assembly that was focused on the issue.

Instead, the Palestinian groups say, the report by Edwards treats “Israeli violations as mere ‘allegations’ while describing crimes against Israelis as substantiated ‘evidence’ ” and falsely claims that the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp was closed.

“Finally, it takes Israel as an example of good practice in supporting survivors to recover from sexual torture,” the groups added, “without any mention of Palestinian detainees, Palestinian victims and the treatment of Palestinian survivors.”

The groups said they repeatedly tried to engage with Edwards “on critical issues” including Israel’s total warfare on civilians in Gaza, the targeting and killing of journalists in the territory and the escalated attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank – particularly violent mass arrests.

But these evidence-based interventions have not been adequately acknowledged or investigated by Edwards, despite the “severity and entrenched nature” of Israel’s use of torture and violations of international law.

Stark contrast

In this context, Israel’s decision to allow Edwards to visit is notable. The welcome she received is in stark contrast to how Tel Aviv has barred entry since 2008 to the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the current holder of that mandate Francesca Albanese.

Unlike Edwards, Albanese is outspoken about Israel’s violations of Palestinians rights and has faced a relentless smear campaign by the US and the Israeli government and its lobby groups in retaliation.

This suggests that Israel grants and denies entry to UN experts based on Tel Aviv’s perception of their usefulness to its propaganda.

The only public output from Edwards concerning the ongoing genocide in Gaza were two brief statements issued in May and in August. She sent only one communication to Israel in May.

In one of those interventions, Edwards called for the transparent and impartial investigation of Israeli soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian detainee and for those responsible to be “held accountable by civilian courts of law.”

Israel is not likely to carry out such an impartial investigation or prosecute those responsible in civilian courts, to say the least.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, appeared to acknowledge this reality in his May announcement that he was applying for arrest warrants of Israeli leaders. He asserted that the court defers to national authorities “only when they engage in independent and impartial judicial processes that do not shield suspects and are not a sham.”

Last month, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that despite the deaths of dozens of Palestinian detainees in Israeli military custody, the military has not brought to trial any cases involving the death of a detainee.

Evidence

Edwards’ signature is notably absent from the many joint statements issued by her fellow independent UN human rights experts raising alarm and urging action to end the genocide in Gaza.

But in January, Edwards co-signed along with Morris Tibdall-Binz, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, a statement demanding accountability for victims of sexual torture and unlawful killings during the 7 October 2023 attack.

“The growing body of evidence about reported sexual violence is particularly harrowing,” Edwards and Tibdall-Binz stated. “Allegations of sexual torture include rapes and gang rapes, sexual assaults, mutilations and gunshots to genital areas.”

A later report by an independent UN commission of inquiry, based on a thorough review of thousands of open-source items and hundreds of documents, pointed to “a pattern of sexual violence” corroborated by digital evidence.

But the commission said it was unable to verify any allegations specifically of rape and that Israel obstructed its efforts to investigate such widely reported claims. The commission also notes “the absence of forensic evidence of sexual crimes committed on 7 October.”

That commission also said that it was “unable to verify reports of sexualized torture and genital mutilation” and “found some specific allegations to be false, inaccurate or contradictory with other evidence or statements and discounted these from its assessment.”

A UN rapporteur like Edwards ought to be particularly sensitive and cautious on this matter, since false claims about 7 October rapes made by politicians from various countries allied with Israel have been repeatedly debunked.

There is a persistent lack of credible evidence to substantiate Israel’s claims of rapes and other sexual violence by Palestinians on 7 October 2023. This lack of evidence stands in contrast to the growing body of testimonies and other documentation of systematic sexual torture of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, thousands of whom are forcibly disappeared with their loved ones having no information of their whereabouts.

Edwards’ upcoming report to the Human Rights Council will focus on hostage-taking as a form of torture.

In their letter to Edwards, the Palestinian human rights groups said that centering this theme rather than the mass arrests and widespread torture of Palestinians “is yet another example of a troubling pattern that suggests you perceive Palestinians as less worthy victims.”

In a call for submissions, Edwards described hostage-taking “as a form of manipulation, coercion and leverage in the hands of both state and non-state actors” – with human beings reduced to bargaining chips in “a cruel game.”

She added that “recent data reveals that state actors now represent significant players” in the use of hostage-taking, whereby individuals are arbitrarily detained to be used as political pawns.

It remains to be seen whether Edwards will include the Palestinians being held without charge or trial or otherwise arbitrarily detained by Israel among the victims of hostage-taking as a form of torture.

Ali Abunimah contributed analysis.