Israel tortures prisoners despite court ban, says report

Israel has resumed systematic torture of Palestinian detainees, three human rights groups say in a joint report.

The Israeli Supreme Court banned the practice two years ago. The document cites affidavits from detainees

Israel says that the ban on torture is still in effect and that alleged violations are being investigated.

Instances of torture include a 16-year-old youth who said he was soaked in freezing water, made to carry a heavy wooden beam while manacled and then beaten.

Israel has said that security forces sometimes need to extract information quickly from suspects who may have knowledge of an impending attack.

An Israeli government report on the issue and the response by the human rights groups will be submitted to an 11-day meeting of the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva, which is due to begin on Monday.

The joint document is produced by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, or PCATI, the Palestinian rights group LAW and the Swiss-based World Organisation Against Torture.

It contends that the September 1999 High Court ruling has been regularly flouted, particularly since the outbreak of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians over a year ago.

"Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are still widely used against Palestinian detainees, both in GSS (General Security Service) interrogation facilities and by members of the Israeli army and police," it says. The GSS is also known by its Hebrew acronym as Shin Bet.

Torture methods described in the document include sleep deprivation, shackling a prisoner to a chair in painful positions for prolonged periods, use of smelly hoods, the playing of deafening sounds and beating, slapping and kicking.