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22. See, alternatively: "Unseating the Israeli Government from the UN General Assembly in case of non-compliance with the Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024" https://t.co/S5AmUtfMS1

21. It is astonishing that after more than 2 years of genocide UN bodies continue with business-as-usual approach. For a pre-Oct 2023 criticism of this timid and toothless approach see https://t.co/oOEGs0FXTb

19. This timid & toothless approach seeks to avoid angering the genocidal state so it will continue to send occasional reports and engage in "dialogue", despite deterioration over decades & increasing Israeli belligerence towards UN, fully knowing the state will not comply

16. Collective torture: "the Committee is concerned that the sum of the.. policies as they relate to the Occupied Palestinian Territory... amounts to the ill-treatment of the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory en masse, and may amount to torture"

15. "Committee expresses its serious concern over widespread allegations of sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees, both men and women, amounting to torture and ill-treatment, including allegations of rape, attempted rape, molestation, sexualized forms of torture..."

14. "Committee is.. deeply troubled at reports indicating a de facto State policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment during the reporting period that has gravely intensified since 7 October 2023"

13. Banning ICRC from monitoring conditions of detention

12. "The Committee expresses its particular concern that the number of deaths in custody appears to be abnormally high and appears to have exclusively affected the Palestinian detainee population."

11. Detention and ill-treatment of children: "Committee also expresses its concern over the low age of criminal responsibility under criminal and military law, which is set at 12 years of age, and allegations that children younger than 12 are also detained on occasion.

10. Widespread use of solitary confinement against Palestinian detainees

9. Horrific conditions of detention: 85 percent without charge; a deliberate state policy of collective punishment

7. Committee calls upon Israel to use administrative detention (without trial) only in exceptional cases despite indicating that Israel's is "an unprecedentedly widespread use of administrative detention since" Oct 7 and despite knowing Israel has used the practice for decades.

7. Absence of basic legal safeguards in the Israeli legal system and Israeli practice

6. Committee's main concerns: lack of specific and adequate criminalisation of torture in Israeli law

5. Committee recalls Israel's failure to implement previous years' recommendations, and ongoing rejection of applicability of convention against torture (CAT), yet calls on it to interpret CAT in "good faith". This begs the question: has the "dialogue" been"constructive"?

4. (b) it decontextualises the discussion of torture from genocide (except a passing reference to UN Commission of Inquiry report; but no mention of @CIJ_ICJ orders on genocide). For a framing of torture as part of the genocide see @pchrgaza report:

3. Two problems with this discourse: (a) it is one-sided (thus it is worse than both-siding). See another previous example in the @FT

2. Committee starts with expressing condolences to Israel and condemning unequivocally the Oct 7 attacks. Does it condemn (or even name) the genocide and express condolences to Israel's victims? No. It merely notes its "grave concern" over Israel's "disproportionate" response.

Observations on the UN Committee Against Torture Concluding Observations on Israel (CAT/C/ISR/CO/6): 1. The business-as-usual approach to human rights: or the limits of the UN's discourse of "pleading" and "constructive dialogue" with rogue, apartheid, genocidal states: 🧵

My mandate as UN Special Rapporteur was pleased to intervene this week in the UK High Court judicial review proceeding, challenging the proscription of Palestine Action by the UK Government https://t.co/aNWfKSxNgc