Detention in the context of the escalation of hostilities in Gaza (October 2023 – June 2024) – Thematic Report by OHCHR

31 July 2024

A man is seen walking while holding a bicycle, navigating through the extensive rubble and debris of destroyed buildings in Gaza. The destruction is a result of bombardments by Israel. The scene vividly captures the devastation and aftermath of the conflict, with crumbled structures and scattered debris dominating the landscape. Photo by UNOCHA/Themba Linden.

A: Summary of the report

1. The present report focuses on detention in the context of the escalation of hostilities in Gaza. It covers the situation from 7 October 2023 until 30 June 2024.

2. On 7 and 8 October 2023, Palestinian armed groups took over 250 persons into captivity in Gaza from Israel. As of 25 June, 116 of them, abducted civilians and captured military personnel, as well as four others taken in 2014, remain in Gaza, held as hostages in dire conditions. According to the Israeli Government, 44 of them are dead. Palestinian armed groups have prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting the hostages.

3. Since early November 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have taken into custody thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, mostly men and boys, but some women and girls as well. They have generally been held in military facilities and further transferred to detention facilities and prisons inside Israel and the occupied West Bank. During raids on hospitals and schools serving as shelters for internally displaced persons (IDPs), the IDF has taken into their custody large numbers, in the thousands, including at least 310 medical staff, as well as patients, companions and IDPs.

4. More than 10,000 workers and patients from Gaza, who were legally present in Israel on 7 October, were also taken into custody in Israel in the days after. It is estimated that 3,200 of them were released and transferred into Gaza in November 2023, 6,441 were transferred to the occupied West Bank, while around 1,000 of them remain unaccounted for.

5. The legal basis for the detention of the Palestinians taken into custody in Gaza has not always been clear, although, on 6 May 2024, Israeli authorities asserted that all Palestinians taken into custody in Gaza were either held by “virtue of the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law … or by virtue of criminal arrest warrants”.

6. Those taken into custody in Gaza, as well as in Israel, have been generally held in prolonged secret and incommunicado detention, with no information provided to their families on their fate or whereabouts, in many cases for weeks or months, raising serious concerns of enforced disappearance.

7. In parallel, also in the aftermath of 7 October, Israeli security forces (ISF) initiated daily mass, apparently arbitrary, arrests of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, affecting all sectors of Palestinian society.

8. Israel continues to take large numbers of Palestinians into custody in Gaza, and to arrest many from the West Bank as of June 2024.

9. The large number of Palestinians – men, women, children, doctors, journalists, human rights defenders – detained since 7 October, most of them without charges or trial and in conditions that raise concerns of the abuse of administrative detention, along with reports of torture and other ill-treatment and violation of due process, raises serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and punitive nature of such arrests and detention. Many of those detained and subsequently released have reported being subject to forms of torture or other ill-treatment
including severe beatings, electrocution, being forced to remain in stress positions for prolonged periods, or waterboarding. At least 53 detainees from Gaza and the West Bank have died in Israeli detention since 7 October.

10. Since 7 October, Israel has suspended the ICRC’s access to all Palestinian detainees in its custody, whether from Gaza or the West Bank. According to Palestinian prisoners’ organizations, Israeli authorities also denied them access to all Palestinian detainees from Gaza. While Israel’s security cabinet on 25 April 2024 decided to allow foreign observers to visit prisons and detention facilities where alleged Hamas operatives have been detained since October 7, the mechanism for such visits has not yet been established.

11. This report is based on monitoring conducted by the OHCHR office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It relies primarily on information gathered by OHCHR staff through interviews with Palestinian released detainees and other victims and witnesses of violations, as well as on information from human rights organizations and other civil society organizations, governmental entities both Palestinian and Israeli, and other UN agencies, as well as information available through media and social media. This report was shared with the Governments of Israel and the State of Palestine, for factual comment.