Prisoners: Israel’s government ignores its own High Court

JVL Introduction

Israel’s own High Court has ruled that the Red Cross should again have access to Palestinian prisoners and a month ago declared a blanket ban imposed since October 7th 2023 must end, not least because the last of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza had been released in October 2025.  Now new rules have been issued, virtually ignoring the High Court’s unanimous decision effectively denying any meaningful Red Cross access to prisoners.

Israel’s new rules, issued last month, limit the International Committee of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC) to just four visits a year and insists that a list of no more than five prisoners that it wants to visit is a submitted in advance.

Furthermore  the new rules limit overall visits to just half an hour and prevent the ICRC from including certain types of “security prisoners and detainees under any circumstances”: this includes those classified as “highly violent,” but also any prisoner undergoing interrogation or held in solitary confinement. Further restrictions, condemned by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) are outlined in the article below.

This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Sun 12 Jul 2026. Read the original here.