Israel blocks Red Cross access to Palestinian abductees to conceal harrowing prison conditions: Report
Israeli authorities continue to block the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting thousands of Palestinian abductees held in the regime’s jails, despite Israel’s obligations under the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, a report says.
In an editorial published on Sunday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel remains legally bound to allow ICRC representatives to visit Palestinian abductees, yet authorities continue to reject such access.
Israel justifies the ban by falsely accusing the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas of previously denying similar visits to Israeli captives held in Gaza after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023.
Before Hamas released all the Israeli captives on October 13, 2024, it had repeatedly declared that it was willing to allow the ICRC to visit them.
However, the movement feared revealing the locations where the captives were being kept because Israel would deliberately strike these places, killing both the captives and Hamas fighters.
In addition, the paper stressed that all Israeli captives have already been released, leaving no justification for preventing international inspections inside Israeli detention centers.
The editorial linked the worsening prison conditions to policies introduced by hawkish Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
These measures contributed to the deaths of more than 89 Palestinian abductees through torture, starvation, and disease, it said.
Many released abductees appeared severely emaciated and described as ghosts and skeletons after enduring harsh prison conditions, Haaretz added.
The newspaper also cited a recent article by American columnist Nicholas Kristof published in The New York Times.
The report included testimonies from 14 former Palestinian abductees who described abuse and sexual violence inside Israeli prisons.
The testimonies shocked political and media circles because they exposed not only violence inside prisons, but also a broader Israeli strategy of secrecy and concealment, according to the editorial.
On March 30, the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) passed the death penalty law for Palestinian abductees.
The law gives Israeli authorities a wide array of legal tools to justify summarily executing Palestinian abductees.
According to human rights organizations, at least 23,000 West Bank Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel since October 7, 2023, when the regime began its genocidal assault on Gaza.
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Israel blocks Red Cross access to Palestinian abductees to conceal harrowing conditions: Report
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