The Israeli occupation authorities continue to commit grave violations of international law through their efforts to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons. This measure seeks to obstruct the humanitarian and monitoring role of the international body mandated under international humanitarian law to protect persons entitled to protection during armed conflict and occupation. It constitutes a deliberate attempt to isolate Palestinian detainees from independent international oversight, conceal violations committed inside Israeli prisons, and shield perpetrators from international accountability. Such actions further aggravate the suffering of detainees and undermine the legal safeguards afforded to them under international law.

According to Al Mezan Center for Human Rights' monitoring, on 9 June 2026, the Israeli Knesset approved in its first reading a bill prohibiting the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. This development came less than a week after the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling of 3 June 2026, which found unlawful and annulled the ban order issued by the Israeli Minister of War at the outset of the genocidal war against the Gaza Strip in October 2023 and subsequently renewed on 29 October 2025. The Knesset's move represents a direct circumvention of the Court's ruling and demonstrates a clear determination to obstruct and undermine the work of the ICRC. It further entrenches the blackout surrounding the conditions of Palestinian detainees and intensifies concerns for their safety and lives in the absence of any independent international monitoring of places of detention.

These concerns are heightened in light of the grave violations documented by Al Mezan over the past two and a half years during Israel's ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Al Mezan has documented horrific crimes committed against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, including torture through electric shocks, severe beatings, stress positions, rape, the use of attack dogs, solitary confinement, and even live-fire incidents. Such abuses often begin from the very first moments of arrest. Israeli authorities have also employed starvation, threats of death, and the deliberate imposition of inhumane detention conditions, among numerous other abusive practices. These violations have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinian detainees.

It is noteworthy that on 30 March 2026, the Israeli Knesset approved, in its second and third readings, a bill providing for the execution of Palestinian prisoners. This raises serious concerns regarding the escalating Israeli policies targeting Palestinian detainees. The proposed legislation banning ICRC visits must therefore be viewed within a broader context of increasingly punitive measures that threaten the lives and safety of Palestinian prisoners and detainees through a gradual but dangerous escalation of policies within places of detention.

Al Mezan emphasizes that the Fourth Geneva Convention guarantees the International Committee of the Red Cross the right to visit detainees and protected persons, inspect conditions in all places of detention, and communicate with detainees without witnesses, pursuant to Articles 76 and 143 of the Convention. Restrictions on such visits may only be imposed on an exceptional and temporary basis for imperative military reasons. Consequently, any blanket prohibition on ICRC visits constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

Accordingly, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the Israeli Knesset's approval, in its first reading, of the bill prohibiting the International Committee of the Red Cross from visiting prisons. Al Mezan considers this legislation an attempt to suppress information, exclude international oversight, and conceal the grave violations committed against Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody. The Center calls upon the international community to fulfill its legal and moral responsibilities and to take decisive and effective measures to halt Israeli crimes. It further urges all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to adopt appropriate measures aimed at compelling the occupying power to comply with international law and to ensure that the International Committee of the Red Cross is able to carry out its mandate in accordance with international humanitarian law.

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