Dozens of Palestinians have been told they can sue their own government in an Israeli court over allegations of torture.
In an unprecedented ruling, a district court in Jerusalem found that 51 plaintiffs accused of collaborating with Israel had been abused during their detention.
One man said that he was arrested while trying to visit his father in a hospital in east Jerusalem. He was held for a year, beaten with iron rods and burnt with cigarettes, he told the court.
Another said that he was sexually abused and locked naked in a room flooded with sewage. Others said that they were given electric shocks, locked inside hot metal containers and had teeth removed. They said that the violence continued even after they made false confessions.
“They put a sack on your head that was soaked in sewage,” one plaintiff said. “You can’t see where the beatings are coming from.”
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Occasionally the torture could be fatal: one detainee died in 2002 in a prison in Nablus.
Under Palestinian law collaborators can be sentenced to death and several of the plaintiffs said that they were forced to watch executions. “It’s as if someone read Dante’s Inferno and tried to emulate it,” Barak Kedem, their Israeli lawyer, said.
The court found that several of the men were arrested in east Jerusalem, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) has no influence. Although most plaintiffs were from the West Bank, a number were Israeli citizens; several were apparently given nationality in exchange for working with the authorities. The PA, created after the 1993 Oslo Accord, has limited authority in parts of the occupied West Bank. Despite the frosty political relationship with Israel, the two sides’ security services work together to arrest suspected militants.
Yair Drori, the judge in the case, ruled that Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel were, in essence, trying to help that security co-operation, and that Israeli courts could therefore hear their claims.
Palestinian officials did not respond to requests for comment. They denied in court that any torture took place, although they did admit having detained the men. The abuses described by the plaintiffs matched those found in reports from groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
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Hundreds of Palestinians have also accused Israel of torture, but the claims are rarely investigated.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has overseen a crackdown against his critics. In recent years police have rounded up political activists, journalists and students who posted unflattering social media messages.
The court will review each case to decide compensation, which could take years. Any judgment is likely to create diplomatic and legal problems; it is unclear how it plans to compel the Palestinians to pay.
•Palestinians promised a “day of rage” and confrontation with Israeli forces over the installation of metal detectors at the Temple Mount- Noble Sanctuary holy site in Jerusalem after a deadly attack last week. Israel put five army regiments on standby to reinforce troops on the West Bank. Palestinians claim the detectors are a violation of an agreement on freedom to worship.