This publication is comprised of four analyses of the Supreme Court rulings that B’Tselem published on its website throughout 2019, on a range of issues: house demolitions, the rights of persons in interrogation, prisoners and their families, and the use of corpses as bargaining chips. These rulings demonstrate how easily the court accepts the state’s position and engages in legal acrobatics in order to sanction a severe violation of human rights. In essence, these analyses demonstrate how Israel’s Supreme Court does not seek to serve justice, but rather to serve the occupation.
Joint report with HaMoked, Center for the Defence of the Individual
Sleep deprivation; prolonged binding; verbal and sometimes physical abuse; exposure to heat and cold; poor, meager food; small, foul-smelling cells; solitary confinement; unhygienic conditions. A new report by HaMoked and B’Tselem shows these to be standard in interrogations at Israel Security Agency’s (ISA) facility at Shikma Prison. The report is based on affidavits and testimonials by 116 Palestinians interrogated there from Aug. 2013 to March 2014, including at least 14 who had been interrogated under torture by the Palestinian Authority shortly before. The ISA’s interrogation system is run with the approval of Israeli authorities, including the High Court of Justice.
The report exposes routine ill-treatment of Palestinians in interrogations. The findings, based on testimonies of 121 Palestinians, show they were subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and in some cases, also to torture. The report calls on Israel to cease the illegal practices, punish the offenders, and compensate the victims.
According to the report, the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed in clashes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip dropped. However, there has been deterioration in many other measures of the human rights situation in the Occupied Territories.
The ISA routinely maltreats Palestinian detainees during interrogations and in some cases even tortures them. This is one of the findings of the report issued today by B'Tselem and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual.
Joint report with the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group
Israel’s regime of occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations. B’Tselem strives to end the occupation, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.