Israeli prison officials cancelled a scheduled family visit for prisoners from the Gaza Strip scheduled for 29 December, reported Palestine Today news channel.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed to the news channel that approximately 75 people, parents of 46 Palestinian political prisoners, were scheduled to visit Eshel prison to visit their children on Monday, but the visit was cancelled due to an order from Israeli prison authorities.
Visits to Palestinian prisoners from the Gaza Strip were denied for nearly six years, from 2006-2012, and were resumed only following the mass hunger strike of April-May 2012 as a demand of the striking prisoners. The visits have been interrupted and cancelled by Israeli officials on numerous occasions since that time.
The denial of family visits to Palestinian prisoners has been a repeated method of isolation of Palestinian prisoners from their families and communities. While some prisoners, particularly leaders, as in the case of Ahmad Sa’adat, have been issued bans forbidding family visits, other Palestinians have had all of their family members denied permits to visit under “security” pretexts.
