NYN | News
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, observed annually on November 25, arrives as dozens of Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli detention face harsh and degrading conditions that contradict international laws and norms guaranteeing the protection of detainees and prisoners, especially women.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli punitive policies against them have escalated in what observers describe as an organized act of retaliation, illustrating how arrests are used as a weapon against Palestinian society as a whole.
“Daily Suffering and Patterns of Torture”
Firsthand testimonies document that the suffering begins from the moment of nighttime raids on homes, where women are taken from among their children, handcuffed, blindfolded, and subjected to harsh interrogation without the presence of a lawyer, held in cells lacking basic human necessities.
Female detainees reportedly face a systematic combination of abuses, including physical torture such as beatings and strip searches, as well as sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling, and psychological torture—ranging from threats of rape or killing to verbal insults, solitary confinement, and collective humiliation.
They are also subjected to forms of gender-based violence in which their bodies are used as tools to subjugate and break their will. Medical neglect includes the denial of treatment for pregnant and postpartum women, malnutrition, poor hygiene conditions, contaminated water and food, forced DNA sampling, and sedation without consent during interrogation—among other practices that violate the detainees’ basic rights.
“The International Legal Framework”
These practices constitute some of the gravest violations of the 21st century, contravening international laws such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture (CAT), the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
The ongoing international silence is, in itself, described as a crime in the face of such violations. Rights organizations have therefore called for pressure to halt these abuses, urgent intervention, the formation of an independent UN-mandated international investigation committee to examine the conditions of detainees, and the prosecution of responsible Israeli officials before the International Criminal Court on charges including torture, physical humiliation, and unlawful detention.
They additionally call for ensuring the release of all Palestinian female detainees—especially the sick and wounded—and providing immediate protection, along with guarantees for their human and legal rights.
What Palestinian female prisoners are subjected to, according to these reports, is not a series of isolated incidents but a systematic pattern of torture and gender-based discrimination that rises to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity—requiring a rejection of international silence and concrete measures to hold perpetrators accountable and protect the victims.
