As of October 2025, over 11,000 Palestinians are reportedly being held in Israeli prisons. This is the highest recorded number in over 25 years, and it is no doubt correlated to the ramped-up raid operations in the West Bank and Gaza intended to subdue the population. In Lebanon, we see Israel’s imperial violence escalating by the day, bombing cities and taking innocent people as prisoners. Israel uses its prison system to stifle resistance so it can continue its genocide freely, and since October 7, 2023, it has banned the Red Cross from entering to visit the prisoners.
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Palestinian and Lebanese political prisoners include children, women, and men. Their treatment inside Israeli prisons is nothing short of torture and systemic abuse. The Red Cross has international leverage to call for an investigation of the human rights abuses by Israel in its prisons.* They must use this leverage now.
Join CODEPINK in the global campaign to tell The Red Cross to use its power to serve Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners!
*Read through the Red Cross’s work on prisons here. We think they should do the same in Palestine!
CODEPINK and the We Are All Palestine network call on the Red Cross to use its power to help save the lives of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons. According to the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross has the power to call a Meeting of States Parties to stop the abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners at the hands of Israeli forces.
As of October 2025, over 11,000 Palestinian prisoners are in Israeli prisons, with over 300 being children. Notable prisoners include pediatrician and hospital director Dr. Husam Abu Safiya and political leader Marwan Barghouti. Both are locked up for helping their people. Meanwhile, Israel is taking more and more innocent Lebanese people as prisoners as it invades Lebanon. Personal and legal accounts from inside the prisons have painted a disturbing and inhumane picture. Abuse of all forms, torture, starvation, unsanitary conditions, and solitary confinement are all commonplace in the Israeli prison system.
It is the job of international humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross to intervene to stop Israel’s abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. The Red Cross must do all that it can, from convening a meeting of countries to speaking out directly against Israel for sabotaging and suppressing the organization’s own work. Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners deserve solidarity and freedom.