By NNN-KUNA,
Geneva : The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that the Israeli authorities must take immediate measures to allow Palestinian families from Gaza to resume visits to their relatives detained in Israel.
The ICRC said that the lack of direct contact between Palestinian families and their detained relatives is becoming unbearable.
ICRC spokesperson Dorothea Krimitsas said Monday that the family visits organised by the ICRC since 1967 had to be suspended on June 6, 2007 following a decision by the Israeli authorities.
“As a result, the parents, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers and children of more than 900 detainees have been deprived of direct contact with their detained relatives for almost one year. Detainees depend on these visits not only for psychological support but also for material assistance such as clothes and blankets,” she added.
Head of the ICRC’s delegation in Israel and the occupied territories Christoph Harnisch said that this measure is depriving both detainees and their relatives of an essential life line.
“It further exacerbates the daily hardship faced by the Palestinian population trapped in the Gaza Strip. The ICRC has facilitated family visits for decades, always in line with Israeli security measures. While we acknowledge Israel’s security concerns, we strongly believe that they alone cannot justify the all-out suspension of family visits to detainees,” he stressed.
Krimitsas, from Geneva, said that because of the suspension of the visits, detainees and their families in Gaza can only communicate through Red Cross messages (brief personal messages to relatives made unreachable by armed conflict).
“As a result, the number of messages has increased from a monthly average of 10 before the suspension to 300 today,” she added.
Harnisch said that people continue to come to the ICRC office every day to sign up for family visits in the hope that the suspension will be lifted.