High Court orders gov’t to justify ban on Red Cross visits for Palestinian prisoners
Government banned Red Cross visits for Palestinian prisoners after October 7 atrocities. Court sets hearing for September, tells state to explain why order is not illegal
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The High Court of Justice has issued a provisional order against the government instructing it to justify its blanket ban on Red Cross visits for Palestinian prisoners that was put in place following Hamas’s invasion and brutal massacres in southern Israel on October 7.
In the order issued on Sunday, the High Court told the government to explain why it should not declare its ban on Red Cross visits to be illegal, and why it should not provide the Red Cross with details of all the Palestinian prisoners and detainees currently being held by Israel.
Provisional orders switch the burden of proof from the petitioner to the respondent, in this case, the government. Although such orders generally indicate that the High Court sees merit in the petition, the court in this case said it was issuing the provisional order in order to expedite the case “without expressing a position on the heart of the matter.”
Following the October 7 onslaught in which Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages, and in the wake of the outbreak of war, the government halted visits by officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
Several human rights organizations petitioned the High Court in February arguing that the Geneva Conventions require the Red Cross be given access to such prisoners, even during the current conflict when Hamas itself refuses to grant access to the Red Cross to the Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza.
In June, the government told the court that it was devising a new mechanism to provide visitation rights for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel as an alternative to Red Cross visits, although it has not explained why it halted such visits in the first place.
The state has requested numerous deadline extensions from the court for filing its responses to the petition, and so the court canceled a preliminary hearing set for Tuesday and ruled that a full hearing would be held sometime in September and that the state must issue its response no later than seven days before the hearing.
According to Hamoked, which provides legal representation for Palestinians and is one of the petitioners in the case, there are currently 9,881 Palestinian prisoners and detainees of different statuses from Gaza and the West Bank being held by Israeli authorities as of this month, all of whom have been denied Red Cross visits.
Numerous reports have emerged of abuse by Israeli officials against Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention facility close to Beersheba, which have resulted in one indictment so far against an IDF reservist while pre-indictment proceedings are currently in progress against another five suspects.
Dozens of other investigations into such abuse are being conducted by the Military Advocate General’s Office.
Thirty-seven Palestinian detainees have died in IDF detention facilities since October 7, while at least 17 Palestinian detainees are believed to have died in the custody of the Israel Prisoner Service since the same date.
