Francesca Albanese: “Israel has actually been given carte blanche to torture Palestinians”

ByMuhammad

On Monday March 23, before the UN Human Rights Council, special rapporteur Francesca Albanese delivered a damning accusation against Israel. She claimed that between October 2023 and January 2026, more than 18,500 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces, including many children, but also doctors, journalists and humanitarian workers. According to her, nearly a hundred detainees died in custody, while 4,000 others remain victims of enforced disappearance. Francesca Albanese denounced systematic practices of arbitrary detention, torture, beatings, sexual violence, deprivation of care, starvation and rape, accusing Israel of acting with impunity with the complicity of Western powers. “Israel has in fact been given carte blanche to torture Palestinians,” she said, praising the courage of the survivors and the Palestinian and Israeli NGOs who document these crimes.

Beyond the facts denounced, it is the question of Israel’s impunity which is frontally posed. A State accused of racist, supremacist practices and based on a colonial logic, today even targeted by accusations of genocide before international courts, nevertheless continues to escape any real sanction. This lack of a credible international response fuels a feeling of double standards and profoundly weakens international law, the application of which seems to depend less on principles than on the balance of political power.

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Muhammad

Muhammad is a visionary thinker and passionate writer who has been contributing to Understanding Islam for several years.