🔴 Palestinian Prisoner’s Society: Katz’s decision to ban the Red Cross from visiting prisoners is an additional cover for the prison system’s ongoing crimes and its concealment of them

October 29, 2025 

Ramallah, occupied Palestine - The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) stated that the decision by the Israeli occupation’s so-called Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, to continue preventing teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli occuption’s prisons — under the pretext of “security reasons” — constitutes an additional cover for the prison system to continue its crimes, including the slow killing of prisoners, and to conceal them.

This decision comes amid growing calls for allowing the ICRC to resume its visits to Palestinian prisoners — visits that have been suspended since the beginning of the genocide — especially as more evidence emerges of unprecedented crimes committed against them, particularly following the latest prisoner exchange deal.

The PPS explained that this decision was issued just hours before a scheduled session of the occupation’s High Court to consider a petition demanding the resumption of ICRC visits to prisoners — a petition that has been postponed dozens of times since the genocide began, as Israel continues to justify the ban on visits by citing the ongoing captivity of “Israeli” prisoners in Gaza.

The PPS added that the level of incitement and complicity practiced by the High Court, along with the entire judicial system, has made them among the key instruments of the colonial apparatus in executing the genocidal war — including the ongoing genocide inside prisons, reflected in crimes of torture, starvation, denial of medical treatment and healthcare, sexual assaults, and the detention of prisoners in degrading conditions. It also referred to numerous cases of killing and field executions of prisoners after the war, making this the bloodiest phase in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

The PPS pointed out that this decision comes shortly after preliminary approvals in Knesset committees for a draft law allowing the execution of prisoners and the establishment of special courts devoid of judicial safeguards to try prisoners from the Gaza Strip.

The PPS noted that testimonies from released prisoners — whether those who completed their sentences or were freed under the recent exchange deal — reveal an unprecedented level of brutality and crimes committed against them during arrest and detention, especially since the start of the war of extermination. The bodies of martyrs recently handed over also showed evidence of horrific, systematic field executions against Gaza detainees, warranting an urgent and independent international investigation into these crimes based on the available evidence and testimonies.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, along with specialized human rights organizations, reaffirmed that what is happening inside the occupation’s prisons is an extension of the broader genocidal war, and that the officially announced number of prisoners who have been killed in detention represents only a small fraction of the ongoing crimes inside prisons and camps.

The PPS called on the international community to form an independent and comprehensive international commission of inquiry into crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners — including deliberate killings and field executions, which fall under the category of genocide crimes. It also urged immediate pressure on the occupation authorities to allow the ICRC to resume its visits, and called on the ICRC itself to take a clear and public stance against the Israeli decision to prohibit these visits, given that prisoners’ families have been deprived of seeing their loved ones since the beginning of the genocidal war to this day.