The Israeli occupation authorities have intensified their policies and measures aimed at preventing the exposure of their grave crimes against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons for the third consecutive year. These crimes have escalated since October 2023, when the Israeli Minister of Security issued a decision, which has been periodically renewed, banning visits to detainees, including visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and family members. This demonstrates the retaliatory nature of the decision and its purpose of obstructing access to information concerning the reality of the crimes and violations perpetrated by the occupation authorities against Palestinian and Arab detainees in their prisons. This comes following the leakage of information indicating the perpetration of unprecedented forms of grave crimes against detainees, including torture, killing, rape, attacks by dogs, shooting, the use of detainees as human shields, and other crimes.
According to the follow-up and documentation of Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, on 6 August 2026, the Israeli Minister of Security renewed the decision to ban visits to detainees from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem indefinitely through a post published on social media. This constitutes an unprecedented and blatant display of violations and crimes against the rights of detainees guaranteed under international standards applicable to persons deprived of their liberty. It also clearly demonstrates the continued defiance of and contempt for the provisions of international law and disregard for all calls issued by international bodies mandated to uphold and enforce international law. It further indicates official endorsement of the crimes and constitutes dangerous support for those perpetrating the crime of genocide in prisons, as well as in the Gaza Strip.
For nearly three years, the occupation authorities have maintained a systematic policy of concealment concerning the number of Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip and the number of those who were killed as a result of torture or medical neglect. They have maintained a tight grip over such information by preventing visits by family members and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and by refraining from officially publishing information concerning the conditions and numbers of Palestinian detainees. The occupation authorities have also continued to enact and amend laws, or advance draft legislation, aimed at achieving the same objective. The latest of these was a bill seeking to prevent the Red Cross from visiting detainees, which the Israeli Knesset failed to pass on 29 June 2026.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights considers that the continued ban on visits to detainees in Israeli prisons for the third consecutive year constitutes a grave assault on human dignity and severe psychological torture, as it deprives detainees of contact with their families, their fundamental social support network. It also constitutes an explicit violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, particularly Article 116, which guarantees every detainee the right to receive visitors, especially relatives, at regular intervals. The continued prevention of visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross likewise constitutes a violation of the same Convention, which guarantees the ICRC the right to visit detainees and protected persons, to examine their conditions in all places of detention, and to speak with them without witnesses, pursuant to Articles 76 and 143. Such visits may only be restricted or prohibited on an exceptional and temporary basis for imperative military reasons. Any blanket ban on such visits therefore constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
While holding the occupying State fully responsible for the lives of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights renews its call on international bodies responsible for upholding and enforcing international law, as well as the international community, to take effective and decisive measures to ensure detainees’ right to receive family visits and to enable the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit them. Al Mezan further affirms that Palestinians may not be arrested, transferred, or detained in territory belonging to the occupying State. Al Mezan calls for the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into the grave crimes committed against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, and for the adoption of the necessary measures and decisions to investigate, prosecute, and hold accountable the perpetrators of these crimes and those who ordered their commission, end the prevailing state of impunity, and ensure justice for the victims and reparation for the harm inflicted upon them.
