Denial of visits

Denial of family visits

The incarceration emergency declared in October 2023 is anchored in a temporary order that has since been repeatedly extended. The order serves as the source for the sweeping denial of family visits to security inmates in Israeli prisons. When the declaration was issued, provisions were made for periodic reviews and amendments in accordance with security and other developments. Since then, more than two and a half years after the outbreak of the war, and despite the ceasefire in Gaza, the extreme policy banning visits remains in force, currently until the end of July 2026.

In November 2025, HaMoked, ACRI and PCATI petitioned the High Court of Justice on behalf of seven West Bank residents, demanding the ban on visits be lifted. The petitioners argued that a general and vague claim of “security needs” was insufficient justification for the ongoing infringement of inmates’ basic right to family life, particularly after a ceasefire agreement was reached in the Gaza Strip. The petition maintained that extending the ban on family visits under the guise of an ever-extended state of emergency, without any indication of the conditions for ending it, denies the fundamental rights of tens of thousands of people, inmates and their family members, including children, thereby rendering hollow the State’s commitment to uphold the rights of inmates living in areas under its military control.

The HCJ took just one week to dismiss the petition, citing the failure to exhaust administrative proceedings vis-à-vis the IPS, whose response came that same day, noting it refused to renew visits as the security risk persists. In January 2026, the IPS repeated its refusal in another letter to HaMoked, claiming that there had been no significant change in the security situation following the ceasefire in Gaza.

Denial of meetings with counsel

The right to legal representation and to meet with counsel is a cornerstone of due process and is well-established in international law, including humanitarian law. Israeli law acknowledges that these rights are also afforded to Palestinian inmates, whether they are detainees, defendants, or convicted prisoners. At the same time, the law permits restrictions on the right to representation, such as temporarily suspending detainees’ right to meet with counsel for purposes of an investigation.

Curtailing the right to meet with counsel can have critical consequences for any inmate, and risks false confessions and violations of the rights to due process, dignity, life, health, and access to justice. For security inmates, who have been denied family and ICRC visits since October 2023, meetings with counsel are crucial. They are the only avenue for assessing incarceration conditions and inmates’ legal status, thus exposing systematic abuse and harassment, and enabling legal and public advocacy actions to stop them.

For security inmates, obstruction of meetings with counsel has spiked since October 2023, as lawyers, most of whom are Palestinian citizens of Israel, have been denied entry to prison facilities. Information released by the IPS indicates that by August 2025, 52 lawyers had been declared ineligible to enter IPS facilities for allegedly transmitting messages to prisoners or acting on behalf of terrorist organizations. The Human Rights Defenders Fund represents 10 lawyers who have been denied access for months, and sometimes for more than a year. A legal review reveals that in most cases, the request to bar entry is based on classified information that the lawyer has no way of challenging. In other cases, bans on entry were based on the claim that the lawyer planned to give an inmate information about their family members and to pass on their regards. In addition to the harm caused to the inmate, these bans also damage the lawyer’s reputation, livelihood, and right to freedom of occupation. Many lawyers have also found themselves facing disciplinary proceedings before the Israel Bar Association, based on complaints lodged with the Bar by the IPS, most of which rely on confidential information.

Revocation of restriction on visits by members of Knesset

In April 2026, following a petition filed by MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, the High Court of Justice revoked (Hebrew) an arrangement dictated by National Security Minister Ben Gvir, whereby only one member of each Knesset faction would be permitted to request a meeting with a security inmate. The justices found that the arrangement raised fundamental and practical difficulties, harmed the ability of Knesset Members to fulfill their role of parliamentary oversight of the executive branch with regard to incarceration conditions, and infringed on the independent status of each MK as a “constitutional unit”. The justices also ruled that the arrangement was tainted by inconsistency and discrimination between MKs based on party affiliation.