The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called for international action after UN experts warned of “escalating use of torture” by Israel against Palestinian prisoners.
Ten UN experts said: “Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.”
A new report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem also describes the torture of Palestinian detainees, including:
“Frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation, deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation, prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment – these descriptions appear time and again in the testimonies, in horrifying detail and with chilling similarities.”
In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said:
“These horrifying reports of torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees by forces of the far-right Israeli government should shock the conscience of public officials worldwide and must lead to international action to stop these atrocities.”
Earlier today, CAIR called on the Biden administration to condemn a top Israeli official who claims that it “might be justified and moral” to starve two million Gazan to death.
Yesterday, CAIR condemned what it called the “seemingly endless” massacres of Palestinian children in Gaza by forces of the far-right Israeli government.
At least 30 bodies have been recovered from the United Nations-run al-Nasr and Hassan Salama schools after Israeli air attacks, with children reportedly accounting for 80 percent of those killed and wounded. CNN reported: “In the videos, medics and rescuers carry injured children to waiting ambulances.”
SEE: At least 30 killed in Israeli airstrike on schools in Gaza, Palestinian Civil Defense says – CNN
On Saturday, CAIR said President Biden either “doesn’t know or doesn’t care” about the Israeli government’s daily massacres of Palestinian children after the administration failed to condemn the latest Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians, an airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City that killed at least 17 people, most of them women and children.
Last week, CAIR said the Biden administration must take action after Israeli authorities announced a new seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Israeli forces again massacred civilians in Gaza.
CAIR also said the administration must act on more reports of torture Palestinian prisoners after 15 prisoners released by Israel in Gaza say they were beaten, deprived of food, forced to remain in harsh physical positions throughout the day, and attacked by dogs. “They broke our hands and feet,” one of the former prisoners said. The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs also reported that a Palestinian from Gaza held in an Israeli prison has died after being tortured. Israeli officials have defended the torture of Palestinian detainees.
Washington, D.C., based CAIR said the continuing silence of the Biden administration on multiple reports of Israeli torture, rape and abuse of Palestinian detainees is “enabling the abuse to continue.”
CAIR called on media outlets in the United States and worldwide to speak out after Israel killed Al Jazeera journalists Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Refee.
Israel has already slaughtered almost 40,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and displaced the vast majority of its population in a campaign of systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure. More than 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes by Israel.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com