Prison service officials doubled down Tuesday on their blanket ban on Red Cross visits to Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails, insisting to lawmakers in the Knesset that allowing the humanitarian organization into prisons poses a national security threat.
Israel halted visits to Palestinian prisoners by Red Cross officials and stopped passing information on inmates to the organization in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.
“The entry of the Red Cross into prisons is liable to damage prison security and therefore, national security,” Netanel Shimson, the head of the Israel Prison Service’s counterterrorism department, told the Knesset National Security Committee.
Representing the agency, Shimson cautioned against allowing “foreign actors” into prisons, which he claimed “raises the potential for the transmission of negative messages.” He also implied such visits could endanger guards and wardens by upping tension inside prisons and leading to possible riots, without going into more detail.
The prison service’s blanket ban has sparked pushback from Israeli human rights organizations, which petitioned the High Court of Justice demanding the state declare the policy illegal based on the Geneva Conventions.
The case is currently being deliberated in court, though the state has not yet submitted its position regarding the petition and repeatedly requested to delay providing a response.
Hamas has refused to grant the Red Cross access to the Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza. Its failure to reach the captives has led many Israeli and Jewish organizations to accuse the organization of not trying hard enough and employing a double standard rooted in alleged anti-Israel bias.
While prison officials discussed potential risks, most lawmakers sitting on the committee focused on the alleged double standard between the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages.
“The Red Cross organization is an antisemitic organization,” claimed Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, adding that it “operated with a lack of balance toward our hostages.”
Committee chairman Zvika Fogel, also of Otzma Yehudit, vowed to do everything in his power to ensure that the Red Cross visits the hostages held by terror groups in Gaza.
“Until that happens, I will stand at the gates of the prisons and prevent them from visiting there,” he declared. “We need to act like a state with a backbone. The cabinet must make a decision: No Red Cross visits until we receive information about our hostages.”
The organization, which says it must maintain neutrality to operate in war zones, facilitated the release of Israeli and other foreign hostages from Gaza in November 2023 and again in January-February 2025.
Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot said Israel “must act like the enemy does” and flout international law so long as Hamas is doing so. “We need to be more ruthless than those who come to murder us. Only then will peace come,” he asserted.
Yizhar Lifshitz, the son of slain hostage Oded Lifshitz, cautioned against treating prisoners harshly for fear of harm to the hostages. He pushed back against Sukkot, insisting that Israel stood to lose its values should it conduct itself like the terror group.
“The hostages are a reflection of the prisoners. When you say you’re treating prisoners harshly, it only means more torture for the hostages,” he warned.
The sole lawmaker who advocated to restore the Red Cross officials’ visitation rights was Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Suleiman.
“Lately, this government is very crudely trampling the laws and treaties it has committed to. Many things happen inside the prisons, and it wasn’t without reason that the High Court gave a ruling regarding prisoners’ conditions,” she said, referencing a recent decision that determined the state was not sufficiently feeding Palestinian inmates.
She said it was “far-fetched and absurd” to place blame on the Red Cross for failing to persuade Hamas to allow its representatives to visit the hostages.