USA07 August, 20263 min read
Ra’ed Abul-Homs Urges ICRC To Oppose Itamar Ben Gvir’s Renewed Ban On Prisoner Family Visits
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Ra'ed Abul-Homs urges ICRC to oppose Israel's renewed prisoner-family visit ban. Itamar Ben-Gvir renewed the ban on family visits to Palestinian detainees.
Renewed ban on visits
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to take a clear and firm position against Israel’s renewed ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners, warning that the measure further isolates detainees and shields reported abuses inside Israeli prisons from international scrutiny. In a statement issued Friday, Commission head Ra’ed Abul-Homs condemned the decision by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to renew restrictions preventing Palestinian prisoners from receiving visits from their families. Abul-Homs said the move represents a continued policy of deliberately cutting Palestinian detainees off from the outside world and denying them contact with their families as well as access to rights and humanitarian organizations.
He described the decision as another indication of Israel’s disregard for international and United Nations institutions and called for immediate international intervention to protect the rights of Palestinian prisoners. The Commission warned that preventing family visits deprives prisoners of a fundamental humanitarian connection while making it more difficult for relatives and international organizations to obtain information about detainees’ health and treatment.
PPS frames it as cover
The Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) said Israel’s decision to renew the ban on family visits to Palestinian detainees would provide the Israeli prison system cover to continue violations against incarcerated Palestinians, Wafa reported. PPS said Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's decision to renew the ban was an extension of a systematic policy “aimed at enforcing the complete isolation of detainees and turning prisons into closed environments where torture, starvation, slow killing, and concealment from the outside world can continue without oversight or accountability”. WAFA also reported that the renewed ban came shortly after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the continued prevention of visits by the ICRC to Palestinian detainees was unlawful.
WAFA added that the Society said the ruling had no tangible impact on detainees’ conditions because Israeli occupation authorities continued to entrench the policy of denial and isolation by preventing the ICRC from visiting Palestinian detainees and renewing the ban on family visits. The PPS stressed that the renewal of the order does not constitute an isolated measure, but rather represents another link in a broader system of retaliatory and punitive policies that the occupation has intensified since the start of the genocide.
Calls for ICRC action
Raed Abu Al-Hummus, head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to take a clear position regarding Itamar Ben Gvir's decision to renew the ban on visits to Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons. In a statement, Abu Al-Hummus said Ben Gvir continues a policy of isolating detainees from the outside world by continuing to prevent family visits, in addition to preventing human rights and humanitarian organizations from reaching them, describing this as a disregard for international and UN institutions. He added that the International Committee of the Red Cross, along with human rights and humanitarian organizations, should issue a statement condemning these practices and publish a clear report reflecting the nature of the violations against detainees' rights.
The Yaffa News Network account also said that since the outbreak of the war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have prevented visits by detainees' families and the International Committee of the Red Cross to prisons. WAFA reported that the PPS renewed its call on the International Committee of the Red Cross to fulfill its humanitarian role as guaranteed under the Geneva Conventions and to take public and effective steps commensurate with the scale of the violations committed against Palestinian detainees.