RAMALLAH, Wednesday, October 25, 2023 (WAFA0 - Prisoners’ advocacy groups today expressed their disapproval and rejection of the silence by the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding Israeli crimes against the Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially the Gaza workers who were rounded up after the October 7 aggression on the Gaza Strip, estimated at 4,000.

The Prisoners and X-Prisoners Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Addameer Foundation for Prisoner Support and Human Rights, the High Commission for the Follow-up on the Affairs of Released Prisoners and the Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights –Hurriyat, called on the Red Cross to make its position clear and explain the reasons for not playing its role in this dangerous and exceptional circumstances and who is the party that is obstructing it work.

Otherwise, they said, the Red Cross must announce the suspension of its activities in Palestine and Israel until they are allowed to exercise their role freely because its silence can only be understood as complicity and bias towards the position of the occupation authority.

The groups said that although the Israeli occupation prevents the Red Cross from exercising its role in accordance with international laws, regulations and agreed on humanitarian values, “this organization has remained silent, has not expressed its position publicly, and has not indicated who is placing obstacles in its way and does not allow it to carry out its humanitarian role.”

Two Palestinian detainees died this week in Israeli prisons in yet unclear circumstances amidst charges that they were killed in one way or another as Israel has isolated the prisoners from the outside world since October 7 and prevented their families or lawyers from visiting them.

M.K.