A UN committee urged Israel on Friday to set up an independent investigatory commission to probe claims of torture of Palestinians, and warned the situation had “gravely intensified” since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel and start of the Gaza war.

The United Nations Committee against Torture said it was “deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” in Israel.

Israel has repeatedly denied allegations of torture or mistreatment of prisoners. The Israel Prison Service has said that it “operates in accordance with the law, under the strict supervision of numerous official inspectors.”

The committee, whose 10 independent experts monitor the implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment by member countries, stressed that it “unequivocally condemns the attack perpetrated by Hamas and other groups on October 7, 2023, against Israel.”

But in a report published after a regular review of Israel, it “also expressed its deep concern over the disproportionate nature of Israel’s response to these attacks.”

And it decried “a range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” warning that it risked leading to “cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population.”

The report said that the committee is “deeply troubled at reports indicating a de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture” through Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including “severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, [and] use of prolonged stress positions” as well as “the “systematic denial of medical........

© The Times of Israel