Israel’s Supreme Court has unanimously rejected a government policy banning representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
The court ruled that by preventing the Red Cross from visiting prisoners, the government had contravened Israeli and international law, and therefore the policy must be repealed. It also ruled that the government failed to present a legal foundation for its policy on annulling all visits after the Hamas-led attack on October 2023, in which more than 1,100 people were killed and more than 240 were taken captive.
Last week, the United Nations annual report on conflict-related sexual violence cited torture, rape, gang rape, forced nudity, and “cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification perpetrated” by Israeli armed forces and security forces primarily during detention and interrogation and across several sites.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which filed the petition said that “For the first time in nearly three years, the over 9,000 Palestinian security prisoners being held in Israeli prisons and military detention centers will receive Red Cross visits,”. The ban remained in place even after a “ceasefire” was agreed last October.
Read more here.
