For the first time, a UN report recognized Hamas taking hostages as a form of torture and a war crime.
By Rachel Avraham
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, recently presented a report titled “Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment: hostage-taking as torture.” According to various reports in the Israeli media, this is the first UN report to recognize Hamas taking hostages as a form of torture, and asserts that the psychological terror that Hamas implemented against the hostages and their families is a war crime. According to Arutz Sheva, this is a historic achievement that was reached thanks to the efforts of the legal department of the Hostage’ Families Headquarters, headed by Dr. Shelly Aviv-Yeini.
According to the report, the Families Headquarters managed to contact the UN special envoy, Alice Edwards. According to the Jerusalem Post, Edwards met with around 20 hostage families and survivors of captivity and toured the Gaza border communities before compiling her report, which was recently presented in Geneva.
Dr. Aviv-Yeini, representative of the legal department of the Hostages’ Headquarters, told Arutz Sheva, “According to the report, the videos Hamas published of the hostages, which include the use of manipulations intended to confuse family members, constitute torture of family members. The report also mentions that hostage families often experience depression and chronic anxiety, also due to the fact that the governments of the families of the hostages often require them not to speak publicly. The next stage is to try to pass a resolution based on the report, that recognizes the hostage families as victims in the UN Security Council as well.”
In the report, Edwards wrote: “Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, as part of their lethal attack of 7 October 2023, abducted 251 people inside Israel, taking them to the Gaza Strip. At the time of writing, 100 hostages, including two infant children, women and older persons, remained unaccounted for. The Special Rapporteur is on record repeatedly calling for their immediate and unconditional release.”
Edwards “also called for accountability for all international crimes committed by Hamas and other armed groups and Israel in the context of the war in Gaza. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has reported that abductions by Hamas are war crimes. The Commission noted that, in most cases, there have also been outrages upon personal dignity and inhumane treatment, as well as sexual and gender-based violence. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the holding of hostages under the current conditions in Gaza, including underground for months, might amount to the war crime of torture or other ill-treatment. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict documented “clear and convincing information”, based on first-hand accounts of released hostages, of rape and sexualized torture against female hostages.””
In another area of the report, Edwards writes, “The International Court of Justice in its provisional orders in South Africa v. Israel ordered that: “The Court deems it necessary to emphasize that all parties to the conflict in the Gaza Strip are bound by international humanitarian law. It is gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release.”
According to Edwards report, “Relatives of the hostages taken by Hamas have not received official proof of life, or been able to send messages of contact, or been given any indication of the hostages’ welfare or condition. In addition, Hamas has released videos of hostages that torment family members by, for example, asking them to guess which hostage has been killed. Bodies of the dead are also used as leverage, preventing families from burying their loved ones. The Special Rapporteur’s position is that, just as in the cases of enforced disappearance, the right to know the truth about the fate and whereabouts of hostages includes the right of the family to have the remains of their loved ones returned to them. The concealment, destruction or violation of the bodies of victims may infringe on the rights of family members to be free from torture and ill-treatment.”
“Hostage-taking is cruelty – plain and simple – and almost always involves torture,” Edwards said in a recent UN press release. “It inflicts severe physical and psychological suffering on both hostages and their families. I have heard horrific stories from victims. How they were seized, without warning, before being incarcerated in rancid prisons and other hellholes in jungles, basements and tunnels. How they were held without proper legal charges or procedures.”
In her report, the Special Rapporteur found that State hostage-taking is occurring with increasing regularity and geographical spread, driven by a small group of governments that detain foreign or dual nationals on fabricated or exaggerated charges to gain diplomatic leverage. The expert identified States such as China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela as being involved in these politically motivated detentions. “At the same time, armed and terrorist groups continue to violently abduct civilians, in mass hostage-takings such as the Boko Haram kidnappings and the 7 October 2023 abductions by Hamas and other armed groups in Israel,” she said.
Edwards noted that victims often suffer psychological coercion, physical abuse and prolonged solitary confinement. Some survivors have reported starvation, mock executions and sexual torture. Once released, hostages can be left with lifelong trauma. “Hostage-taking is an affront to human dignity,” she said. “What is particularly deplorable is the way in which hostages are deliberately mistreated as part of the perpetrators’ strategy to secure better concessions. This type of manipulation is unconscionable,” the expert said.
Families of Israeli hostages have confirmed the findings in this recent UN report. “Unfortunately, even after 515 days, neither me nor my daughters are capable of unpacking what happened on [October 7],” Lishai Miran Lavi, the wife of hostage Omri Miran, told the Jerusalem Post. “We are still there; we are still hostages because Omri has not been returned back to us.” Miran Lavi said that when she wakes up in the morning, her daughters ask her the same three questions: “Why is Dad still in Gaza? When will he return? Mom, did you succeed in bringing him back?” she said. “Their abandonment fears are felt every minute of every day.”
Rivka Bohbot, the wife of hostage Elkana Bohbot, told the Jerusalem Post that the report must be a wake-up call to the world. “Today, more than before, based on testimonies from freed hostages and from Edwards’s report, we know that the hostages are being viciously tortured,” she said. “Every person with a conscience, anyone who believes in justice and humanity, must ask themselves: How are we, as a global society, continuing to allow this to happen?”
