‘Torture and Genocide’, a new report by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese

On March 23, 2026 a new report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese to the Human Rights Council was published, with the title ‘Torture and Genocide’. Here is a brief abstract. The report can be downloaded, by clicking on the image below.

Torture and Genocide in Palestine: A Systemic Policy

The report by the UN Special Rapporteur exposes a stark reality: the torture inflicted on Palestinians is neither incidental nor exceptional. It is a central pillar of a system of colonial domination and an ongoing genocidal process.

For decades, Israel has embedded coercive violence within its mechanisms of control. However, since October 2023, an unprecedented escalation marks a qualitative shift: torture has become massive, openly endorsed, and directed against the Palestinian people as a whole. It no longer targets individuals alone, but a population “as such.”

In prisons and detention camps, testimonies describe a regime of extreme brutality: beatings, sleep deprivation, deliberate starvation, sexual violence, and systematic humiliation. Children, doctors, journalists, and humanitarian workers are arrested, tortured, and in some cases killed. Bodies are broken, minds shattered, lives destroyed. This violence is not a deviation—it is coordinated, institutionalized, and publicly justified.

But torture is not confined to detention sites. The report demonstrates that the entire occupied Palestinian territory has been transformed into a “torturing environment.” In Gaza, siege, famine, mass bombardment, and the destruction of hospitals, schools, and homes create permanent collective suffering. The entire population is trapped in a space where death, fear, and deprivation are constant.

In the West Bank, pervasive surveillance, settler violence, forced displacement, and the destruction of livelihoods extend this logic. Daily life itself becomes a form of torture—an existence defined by insecurity, humiliation, and constant threat.

International law is clear: torture is absolutely prohibited. But the report goes further. It shows that the systematic use of torture against a group is a key indicator of genocidal intent. By inflicting widespread physical and psychological harm, destroying living conditions, and targeting social structures, Israel is implementing a strategy aimed at weakening, fragmenting, and ultimately erasing the Palestinian people.

This system is not sustained by the military alone. It is reinforced by legislation, validated by courts, legitimized by political discourse, amplified by media, and normalized within parts of society. Torture thus becomes a collective enterprise, socially produced and politically defended.

The report’s conclusion is unequivocal: the ongoing genocide also manifests as continuous, collective, and generational torture. These are not isolated acts, but a coherent architecture of destruction.

In the face of this, international inaction is no longer tenable. States have a legal obligation to prevent, investigate, and prosecute these crimes. Ending torture also requires ending the system that produces it: occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism.