High Court of Justice slams government for not allowing Red Cross to visit Nukhba prisoners

The judges compared the Hamas terrorists’ conditions to those in the U.S.A.’s often-criticized Guantanamo prison.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

In a closed-door hearing Monday, the High Court of Justice slammed the government for not allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israel, including those from the group’s elite Nukhba forces.

“At the moment, what’s being said in the world is that Israeli prisons are [like] Guantanamo,” said Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit.

He was referring to the U.S.’s extraterritorial prison located at an American base in Cuba, where mostly suspected al-Qaida terrorists have been held for years, many never having gone to trial, and in suboptimal conditions, according to critics.

“This is what is being reported to the world: that there is starvation, that dozens of prisoners are dying; literally the Israeli Guantanamo, and you’re putting us, the court, on the front lines,” he added.

Amit may have meant that when security prisoners are put into administrative detention instead of going to trial, a court has to agree periodically to extend their detention, making the justices ultimately responsible for their fate.

Judge Dafna Barak-Erez focused on a different legal issue, saying, “The families of terrorists in Gaza also don’t know that they’re in prison…. It’s true, they did terrible things, but to not know that they are in Israel? Even in the most difficult times, such things didn’t happen. Habeas corpus requires the provision of information, and [Israel] always followed this. Suddenly, no information is being released.”

Although the main official figure receiving their opprobrium was National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had set the policy of denying Red Cross visits, Barak-Erez also turned to the head of the Israel Prison Service’s intelligence directorate to ask, “Is your organization so weak that it can’t deal with just one American Red Cross representative?”

The Intelligence head responded, “The terrorists in the prisons are even talking about this hearing and hoping that you allow the Red Cross to visit them.”

Last August, the High Court had issued conditional order demanding that the state explain why such Red Cross visits should be banned.

In explaining his opposition to such visits, Ben-Gvir had previously told the press, “These visits harm deterrence and negotiations with Hamas, raise the morale of the terrorists, may lead to prison riots, and beyond that, it is a violation of Israeli sovereignty, and an opening for international intervention in other issues in the future. No country that respects its sovereignty and security would allow this to happen.”

A dozen other ministers had criticized the idea, since the international organization had not once seen the 251 hostages that the terrorists had kidnapped during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, to assess their health and provide them with medication, which is the Red Cross’ official global mission.

The Red Cross has yet to visit a single hostage, and the statements it has made criticizing the terrorist group have been few and far between.

It has never mounted any public shaming campaign to pressure Hamas, even after the terrorists released horrific videos of emaciated hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski earlier this month.