Warnings issued over Ben-Gvir’s renewal of ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners

OCCUPIED PALESTINE, Aug. 08 (YPA) – The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said that the announcement by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the “National Security” Minister in the Israeli occupation government, that the order banning family visits to prisoners in occupation prisons had been renewed was not surprising.

Rather, it constitutes a continuation of a systematic policy aimed at enforcing the complete isolation of prisoners and turning prisons into closed spaces where torture, starvation, slow killing, and concealment from the outside world are carried out without oversight or accountability. This gives the prison system further cover to continue committing serious violations against Palestinian prisoners.

The club added that the renewal of the family-visit ban came shortly after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that deemed the continued prohibition of visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross to prisoners unlawful. However, the ruling has had no impact on the prisoners’ situation, as the occupation authorities have continued to entrench their policy of denial and isolation by preventing the International Committee of the Red Cross from conducting visits and renewing the order banning family visits.

It said this further confirms that the various occupation institutions operate under a unified policy aimed at creating an environment that allows crimes against prisoners to continue, while maintaining their complete isolation from the outside world, preventing effective oversight of their conditions, and giving the prison system greater latitude to continue its violations without accountability.

@E.Y.M