04/10/2026

Press Release

Al-Dameer: Continued Denial of International Committee of the Red Cross Access to Detainees Exacerbates Crimes and Violations Inside Israeli Occupation Prisons

Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights – Gaza: Israeli occupation forces continue to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting Palestinian detainees held in Israeli occupation prisons, amid a serious and rapidly deteriorating situation concerning their humanitarian and health conditions, and an escalation of systematic violations against them, posing a direct threat to their lives and physical and psychological safety.

According to information documented by Al-Dameer Association based on testimonies from detainees who have been visited, the spread of scabies inside the prisons has become a widespread health threat to detainees, amid the absence of necessary treatment and medical care and their deprivation even of painkillers. This is compounded by practices that contribute to the spread of the disease, including forcing detainees to exchange clothes, under detention conditions that lack even the minimum standards of hygiene and health.

The policy of starvation and deprivation of food also continues, with food quantities reduced to unprecedented levels that are insufficient to meet the detainees’ basic needs. In addition, detainees continue to be prevented from going outside for sunlight and recreation (“fawra”). Repression and ill-treatment of detainees also continue, including forcing them to sleep on their stomachs, assaulting them with batons, gas, and rubber bullets, and using police dogs. These practices have resulted in serious injuries, without providing the injured detainees with the necessary medical treatment.

Al-Dameer considers that the continued denial of access to detainees by the International Committee of the Red Cross deprives an independent international humanitarian body of the opportunity to directly examine their conditions and provides the occupation authorities with greater space to continue violations away from international humanitarian scrutiny.

Al-Dameer emphasizes that the meeting held between the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Israeli Prison Service on 9 September 2026 cannot become a public-relations cover or a substitute for actual visits to detainees and direct access to their conditions. What is required is not promises or statements, but actual and unconditional access to detainees inside the detention sections and rooms.

Accordingly, Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross to assume its legal and humanitarian responsibilities and to take urgent and effective action to ensure its access to all Palestinian detainees, examine their conditions, document the violations to which they are subjected, and exert pressure to end these practices and ensure that sick and injured detainees receive the necessary treatment and medical care.

The Association also calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross to use all means available to it to bring this grave situation to an end, work to halt the continuing violations and crimes against detainees, save their lives, and ensure respect for their dignity and fundamental rights in accordance with the rules of international humanitarian law.

Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights – Gaza