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New Delhi: When 16-year-old Faris was searching for aid with his father in Gaza’s Morag Corridor, he was allegedly abducted by Israeli forces. After being interrogated and beaten severely, he says he was transferred to a “Disco room”: a concrete room with speakers that blare music in Hebrew. “They positioned my head right next to the speakers,” he said. Later, Faris’s forehead was allegedly hit so hard by an Israeli soldier that it split open and required stitches.

Disco rooms are one of the many methods of systematic torture unleashed upon Palestinian people, including children, by Israel, according to a recent report released by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. The report examines the systemic use of torture against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023. Over 300 testimonies collected by various organisations, consultations with legal experts and accounts by survivors and Israeli whistleblowers form the basis of this report. 

Tracing patterns of torture inflicted upon Palestinians historically, since the colonial era till modern-day detention centres, the report argues that torture is not merely misconduct by certain individuals, but “a structural feature of the ongoing genocide and broader settler-colonial apartheid” and “has always been a central feature of the dispossession of Palestinians by Israel”.

“My hands were tied with handcuffs and I was kept blindfolded all the 55 days I stayed in this detention. You could imagine how difficult it would be to eat, sleep or even move. The amount of........

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