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Is torture
a crime
in Israel?


Adalah calls for a new law that explicitly prohibits torture in Israel, with a sentence of 15 years to life imprisonment for perpetrators in death cases. 

\\ Read the introduction

*Illustration: Moran Barak
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Since June 2014, the Israeli police have arrested more than a thousand Palestinians following a brutal crackdown on dissent in Jerusalem and protests against the Gaza war and the point-blank police killing of Kheir Hamdan, a 22-year old Palestinian citizen of Israel, in Kufr Kana. Detainees were beaten, painfully handcuffed, threatened and humiliated, prevented from sleeping, and held in filthy detention cells during arrest and interrogation.
 
These practices violate international human rights conventions ratified by Israel that prohibit the use of torture and ill-treatment. Despite the Israeli Supreme Court’s landmark anti-torture case issued 15 years ago, Israel continues to use these methods systematically in the absence of an Israeli law that explicitly prohibits torture – new legislation that UN human rights treaty bodies have called for repeatedly. The internal regulations of the Israeli security forces also contain many loopholes that allow torture to continue and make it difficult to hold the perpetrators to account.
 
Adalah is now issuing a new proposed legislative bill to outlaw torture in Israel. The bill outlines the basic provisions that should be incorporated into Israeli law in order for Israel to comply with its international human rights obligations. 
Torture is the norm, not the exception
 
Shocking testimonies of physical and psychological torture committed against Palestinian children.

\\ Read the testimonies

Photo By: Ronen Zvulun/ Reuters
In November 2014, in response to a letter sent by Adalah and Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (DCI-P), the Military Advocate General announced that he would open military investigations into 12 of 21 complaints made by Palestinian children in the OPT, which detailed shocking testimonies of physical and psychological torture committed against them by Israeli security forces in 2013.

Adalah stresses that while this is a positive step, the Israeli security forces use these methods on a systematic basis, making torture the norm, not the exception.


 
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