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BREAKING: UN Committee Against Torture: Israel now has a “de facto State policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” that has “gravely intensified” since October 7. The UN Committee is made up of ten independent UN experts and periodically monitors states’ compliance with the Convention against Torture, issuing binding assessments of state conduct. Their latest findings of Israel’s conduct include repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, prolonged stress positions, sexual violence, humiliation such as being forced to act like animals or being urinated on, denial of medical care, excessive restraints causing amputations, surgery without anaesthetic, exposure to extreme heat or cold, deprivation of food, water, hygiene, clothing, sleep, and the use of hallucinogens on detainees. The Committee found at least 75 Palestinians have died in custody since October 7 amid a deliberate state policy of collective punishment, with autopsies showing signs of torture, malnutrition and untreated medical conditions — and no officials held accountable. Israel has also suspended ICRC access to detainees. It warned that Israel’s sweeping administrative detention regime has reached “unprecedented” scale, with Palestinians held for months without charge, denied lawyers for up to 15 days, and presented to judges after 12 days. Settlers, however, were exempted from the same military order. Under the Unlawful Combatants Law, Palestinians — including older people, disabled people, pregnant women and children — have been detained in groups without individualized assessment, held incommunicado, and placed outside legal protection in what the Committee says amounts to enforced disappearance. The Committee further warned that Israel’s cumulative policies — the blockade on aid, destruction of civilian infrastructure, forced displacement, and a system of movement restrictions and segregation — may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the Palestinian population as a whole.