UN panel says Israel operating 'de facto policy of torture'

Under Israel's laws on administrative detention and on Unlawful Combatants – suspects who cannot be classed as prisoner of war - can be held for long periods without access to a lawyer or family members.

Many Palestinian families say they have waited months to even find out that a loved has been detained, amounting, the UN committee said, to "enforced disappearance".

The committee was particularly critical of Israel's reported use of the Unlawful Combatants law to detain whole groups of Palestinians, including children, pregnant women, and the elderly.

Palestinians, the evidence suggests, are regularly deprived of food and water, and subjected to severe beatings, attacks by dogs, electrocution, water boarding, and sexual violence. Some are allegedly permanently shackled, denied access to a toilet, and forced to wear diapers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckglrdg6kz7o

Israeli and Palestinian rights groups gave harrowing details about conditions in Israeli detention centres

The committee concluded that such treatment "amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity". It said evidence of a "de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture" by Israel was one of the acts which constitute the crime of genocide under international law.