New Delhi: A UN expert has warned that Israel’s systematic torture of Palestinians is now being practiced “openly” and that it has become “a regime of organised humiliation, pain and degradation” sanctioned at the highest political levels. The expert underlined in a report that a system that has long been used to dominate, degrade and break Palestinians has evolved and hardened into “state doctrine”.“Since the onset of the genocide, the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, in her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a press release by the UN on Monday (March 23).“What once operated in the shadows is now practiced openly: a regime of organised humiliation, pain and degradation, sanctioned at the highest political levels,” Albanese added.The UN expert underlined that policies imposed by senior officials, including the minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir, have institutionalised torture, collective punishment and manifestly dehumanising conditions of detention.“Those responsible for these heinous violations of human rights, from which no derogation is possible even in times of war, must face investigation and justice, including before the International Criminal Court,” Albanese said.According to Albanese’s report, since October 2023, more than 18,500 Palestinians have been detained across the occupied Palestinian territory, including at least 1,500 children. Thousands remain in detention without charge or trial. Many have been forcibly disappeared. Nearly 100 detainees have died in custody.Further, the report highlighted disturbing details: “Detainees have been abused in unfathomable ways, including rape with bottles, metal rods and knives, starvation, breaking of bones and teeth, burning, being spat upon, and being attacked and urinated upon by dogs.”“A system that has long been used to dominate, degrade and break Palestinians has evolved and hardened into state doctrine,” Albanese warned. “It is defended by politicians, rationalised by legal institutions, sanitised by media narrative and tolerated by governments that continue to arm and shield Israel.”The report by the special rapporteur pointed out that torture extends beyond prison walls. Through relentless bombardment, forced displacement, starvation, the destruction of homes, hospitals and infrastructure, pervasive surveillance, and terror inflicted by soldiers and settler terror militias, Israel has created what the report calls a “torturous environment” across the entire occupied Palestinian territory, as per the press release.“In Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinians are subjected to a continuum of suffering,” Albanese said. “There is no refuge. No sanctuary. No safe place to exist.”In Gaza, #WestBank & East Jerusalem, Palestinians are subjected to a continuum of suffering – @FranceskAlbs denounces torture of Palestinians, says it extends beyond Israeli prison walls. “There is no refuge. No safe place to exist.” @UN_HRC #HRC61https://t.co/9IBBWMCF9C pic.twitter.com/QRRsh53y6j— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) March 23, 2026The report concluded that the systematic use of torture, combined with the wider campaign of destruction inflicted on Palestinians, forms an integral component of the ongoing genocide, inflicting severe bodily and mental harm on Palestinians as a group.“Torture does to the individual what genocide does to a people,” she said. “It destroys the conditions of life and human dignity. It reduces human beings to objects of abuse,” the expert said.Albanese urged Israel to immediately cease all acts of torture and ill-treatment, grant access to international investigators and humanitarian organisations, and ensure accountability for those responsible pending its urgently needed dismantlement of the occupation.“Member states must meet their legal obligations to prevent and punish genocide, torture and other serious violations of international law,” she said, including by investigating and issuing arrest warrants for those responsible, such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz.“International law is unequivocal: torture is absolutely prohibited, without exception,” Albanese added. “If the international community continues to tolerate such acts when inflicted on Palestinians, then the law itself will be stripped of meaning.”