Human Rights Watch, an international human rights group, claims that Palestinian authorities are silencing free speech and abusing journalists critical of their policies.

Human Rights Watch said both the Western-backed Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and its rival, the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, are "arresting, abusing, and criminally charging journalists and activists who express peaceful criticism of the authorities."

In 2007, Hamas ousted Abbas' Fatah forces from Gaza in bloody street battles, leaving the Palestinians divided between two governments. Attempts at reconciliation have repeatedly failed, and both Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority have periodically launched crackdowns against their rivals in efforts to consolidate power.

"The Palestinian governments in both Gaza and the West Bank are arresting and even physically abusing activists and journalists who express criticism on important public issues," said Sari Bashi, the Israel and Palestine country director at Human Rights Watch.

Some of the activists arrested are those who "ridiculed Palestinian security forces" and "accused the government of corruption" either with graffiti or on social media.

In Gaza, the rights group said an activist who criticized Hamas for "failing to protect a man with a mental disability" was detained and intimidated by the group, as was a journalist who "posted a photograph of a woman looking for food in a garbage bin."

Just a small sampling of abuses: "activists and journalists said that security officers beat or kicked them, deprived them of sleep and proper food, hosed them with cold and then hot water, and made them maintain uncomfortable positions for long hours."

One journalist accused the Palestinians of physical and psychological torture.

"For the first week, the investigation was friendly," Tarik Abu Zaid, a journalist with Hamas-allied al-Aqsa media said. "But by the end of the first week, they started using several ways of physical and psychological torture to make me confess to charges that I didn't do." He said he was forced to stand and prevented from sleeping for three days and beaten in the genitals by an interrogator."

A spokesman for the West Bank government said these kinds of incidents were "isolated."

"These incidents have nothing to do with freedom of the press," Jamal Dajani, spokesman for the West Bank government said. "The government is working on creating a better environment for press freedom. We believe in and support the freedom of speech and the right for journalists to operate freely in Palestine."