Israel's Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the government must allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to resume visits to Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons, overturning a ban that had been in place since the Hamas-led attacks of October 2023. The court found that the policy of preventing Red Cross access contravened both Israeli domestic law and international law, and that the government had failed to provide any legal foundation for the blanket prohibition.
The ban was introduced in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks, in which more than 1,100 people were killed in Israel and more than 240 taken captive into Gaza. Israel halted all ICRC visits to the roughly 9,000 Palestinian security prisoners held in its prisons and military detention centres — a suspension that, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), marked the first time in 50 years that such access had been blocked. The ban remained in place even after a ceasefire agreement was reached in October of last year. ACRI, along with Physicians for Human Rights, HaMoked and Gisha — all Israeli human rights organisations — filed the original petition in February 2024, but the state sought 27 extensions before a hearing was finally held last October.
The ICRC welcomed the ruling and said it was ready to resume its work immediately. "We are continuing our dialogue with the Israeli authorities to resume our work in detention as soon as possible," the organisation said in a statement, reiterating that access to detainees — including the right to meet with them privately — is an obligation under international law. The decision arrives against a backdrop of serious and mounting concerns over the treatment of Palestinian prisoners. A United Nations report released last week cited verified instances of torture, rape, gang rape, forced nudity and unjustified cavity searches carried out by Israeli armed forces and security personnel, primarily during detention and interrogation, including at the Sde Teiman military facility.
The ruling carries broader significance at a moment of intense international scrutiny over Israel's conduct during the ongoing conflict in Gaza, where more than 72,950 people have been killed according to Gaza's Health Ministry, and nearly 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced. The restoration of ICRC monitoring — a cornerstone mechanism for ensuring minimum standards of treatment for wartime detainees — will be closely watched by human rights advocates and international bodies who have argued that its suspension left a critical accountability gap in place for nearly three years.