Israeli court refuses to allow Gaza families to visit their sons in jails

The Israeli higher court rejected the petitions filed by Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights, and the HaMoked center for the defense of the individual, on behalf of Palestinian families from the Gaza Strip to allow them to visit their sons imprisoned in Israeli jails.

The Israeli prosecutor alleged that Israel is not obliged to allow the Gaza people to cross its borders because the Israeli military rule that had administrated Gaza was over.

The petitions filed underscored that preventing family visits led to the complete isolation of about 1,000 prisoners from the outside world, who also became deprived from essential needs including money provided by their families during visits.

In the same context, Rafat Hamdouna, the director of the prisoner center for studies, highlighted that the exchange of visits between prisoners and their families is a right guaranteed by international law and agreements especially the fourth Geneva convention. 

Hamdouna called on the Red Cross to intervene to ensure that all families of prisoners has the right to visit their son in Israeli jails away from the pretexts used by Israel to justify its arbitrary measures against prisoners and their families.

He stressed the need for the resumption of normal weekly visits to detainees and prisoners, and allowing families to bring in with them food and basic supplies during visits and to meet their sons through grilles instead of glass shields.

The Wa”ed assembly for detainees and ex-detainees held a symposium entitled “The humanitarian and legal dimensions of banning the program of family visits to prisoners” in the presence of a number of families of prisoners, dignitaries and lawmakers.

During the symposium, Mohamed Al-Ketri, the deputy minister of prisoners” affairs, said that the visits are the link between prisoners and their families and depriving them from this link increases their psychological suffering.

Ketri called on the international humanitarian institutions especially the Red Cross to break their silence and expose the Israeli inhuman violations against Palestinian prisoners and their rights.

“But the Red Cross, despite the several meetings with it, has remained silent and it seems that it cannot make any statement against the Zionist government,” the deputy minister added.