By Mina Al-Oraibi

 

NEW YORK, 25 Sept. - (ANA) - The International Committee of the Red Cross has not had access to Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons since the October 7 attacks almost three years ago, the president of the humanitarian organisation told The National.

 

In an interview during the UN General Assembly high-level debate this week in New York, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said the lack of access is part of a broader global pattern marked by growing obstacles to reaching conflict zones and prisoners.

 

She pointed to a combination of factors, including the growing use of new technology such as drones, a “loose approach” to civilian protection, a “very permissive interpretation” of international humanitarian law, and a growing willingness to pursue “total victory” in wars.

 

“If you look at today's escalations, they're increasingly targeting civilian infrastructure […], everything that people need in order to move from one place to another,” said Ms Egger.

 

“But also, the new technologies create an environment where safety is becoming increasingly hard to find. You know, drones don't give us the necessary guarantee to be able to move, because those who give us the clearance don't fully control the deployment of the arms, because the deployers sit very far away,” she added.

 

In Israel, a ban on Red Cross visits to prisons left more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli detention with no way to report on their health and the conditions of their incarceration.

 

Israel's Supreme Court in June issued a ruling that overturned a ban on members of the ICRC visiting Palestinians held in the country's jails. The ban has been in place since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023. However, access remained hindered.

 

“We haven't had access to prisoners or detainees in Israel since October 7,” said the ICRC president. “We've been working on regaining that access, […] that is a matter of utmost importance,” she added.

 

“One big challenge […] is detention. And I'm not singling out Israel, because it's increasingly a problem or a fact that we are systematically denied access to prisoners of war and detainees that are protected under the Geneva Conventions.”

 

The growing number of conflicts around the world, from the Middle East to Africa and Europe, has put significant pressure on aid organisations to deliver humanitarian assistance. Shrinking funding, as countries face mounting economic pressures, has further hindered services and forced aid agencies to make cuts in several places.

 

“All the development gains achieved over the last decade are at risk of being undone very quickly, if it's not already the case,” warned Ms Egger.

 

 

 

 

The consequences have been catastrophic in some areas, particularly where large parts of the population rely heavily on humanitarian assistance for their basic needs.

 

“The humanitarian impact is so high that the humanitarian system cannot cope with it any more,” said the ICRC president.

 

On Wednesday, the Board of Peace proposed a six-month $2.45 billion plan to begin rebuilding Gaza and restoring basic services, as efforts to implement President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan face major challenges.

 

The ICRC president spoke of “unacceptable levels of suffering” in Gaza. Despite the decrease in hostilities, recovery has not begun because the ongoing ban on dual-use goods by Israel prevents the ICRC and others from bringing in the materials needed to begin recovery.

 

In Yemen, where the ICRC is still operating, the recent escalation by the Houthi rebels on the western coast only meant the population is now “left without any resilience to cope”, she said.

 

Ms Egger added that what is needed in parallel with the ICRC's work is a UN system and other big organisations bringing material goods for the people, but “assistance at scale is very difficult to get at the moment because of the retreat of the UN system and, again, because of the fighting, but also absence of financial means”.

 

Sudan, where the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been at war for more than three years, is suffering from a similar situation but in a much larger area and with a limited number of transport routes. “The permits are an issue, so there's a lot of bureaucracy imposed on humanitarian organisations because there's a fight for legitimacy,” she explained.

 

Ms Egger also mentioned Iran, where drone attacks have created a sense of insecurity among people. “They don't dare to send their children to school,” she said. “People don't dare to go to work. People lose their jobs also because of the humanitarian impact,” she added.

 

Two years ago, six countries - Brazil, France, China, Kazakhstan, Jordan and South Africa - joined the ICRC in launching an initiative in New York aimed at strengthening respect for international humanitarian law. “They all came together with us to call on states to unite around a more protective interpretation of international humanitarian law, to promote de-escalation and to help reverse the current very dangerous tides,” Ms Egger said. Since then, 118 countries have joined the initiative.

 

She said 27 countries have led hundreds of consultations ahead of an international meeting of heads of state and government hosted by Jordan's King Abdullah II on December 7. “We hope states will come together to adopt the declaration whereby they reaffirm faith in international humanitarian law and commit to do more in the future to avoid the negative consequences at scale that we see from conflict today”.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/25 September 2026  - - -