Red Cross meets officials at Israeli detention facility, not allowed to see Palestinian prisoners

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross was not allowed to meet with Palestinian security prisoners and detainees while touring a military detention facility on Wednesday, according to a statement from the head of the ICRC in Israel.

The team met with Israeli security officials for technical talks and received a tour of the facility, but did not see or have any direct access to those held there, Julien Lerisson said.

Still, Lerisson called the discussions “positive” and “a step in the right direction toward resuming appropriate visits to detainees held in Israeli detention facilities,” vowing that the ICRC will “continue discussing the format and conditions for conducting these visits with all relevant authorities, to enable their resumption.”

A Red Cross spokesperson declined to say which facility was toured.

An ICRC spokesperson told The Times of Israel on Monday that the meeting would take place as it tries to resume the visits to Palestinian security prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails.

Israel halted the visits nearly three years ago, following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, justifying the ban in part by pointing to the terror group’s refusal to allow the Red Cross to visit Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Earlier this year, the High Court of Justice ruled that the government cannot prevent the visits. In the wake of reports that visits will resume, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir accused the court of harming the deterrence capability of Israel’s security forces.

The justices, however, did not specify when the visits had to resume and according to an Israeli television report on Monday, the government has made significant efforts to delay the implementation of that decision until after the election next month.

A series of reports issued by the Public Defender’s Office, revealed in January, found that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli prisons suffer from severe and systematic violence from prison guards, deprivation of food and medical neglect, and unsanitary conditions that caused and exacerbated outbreaks of disease in the prisons.

The Israel Prison Service has denied allegations of systematic abuse, while Ben Gvir has repeatedly boasted of his minimalist policy on conditions for security prisoners since October 7.

Last month, he posted a video of himself telling female Palestinian security prisoners that they deserve only the most basic conditions. The video was later removed after an appeal by the Committee Against Torture organization to the Central Elections Committee, claiming the video constituted illegal use of state resources for election propaganda.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.