A number of right groups, including HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual and seven other human rights organizations, submitted a petition to Israel’s High Court in which they urge that Palestinian prisoners to be allowed to have phone contact with their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Israel entered its third lockdown and all prison visits have been canceled due to Coronavirus restrictions. While Israel Prison Service (IPS) allows its criminal prisoners to contact their families, it denies the majority of Palestinians to have so.

The IPS has restricted visits to its facilities since the outbreak of the pandemic in late February, leaving more than 4,000 Palestinian prisoners and inmates completely isolated from the outside world without visits or phone calls.

Moreover, it demands access to phone calls for prisoners who have contracted the Coronavirus or need to quarantine due to contact with confirmed patients and it calls for a system to be put in place to grant all detained minors frequent access to phone calls.

"Ten months into this pandemic and the Israel Prison Service has failed to ensure regular contact between Palestinian detainees and prisoners and their families," said Jessica Montell, Executive Director of HaMoked.

"Now, with the third lockdown and the cancellation of all prison visits, thousands of people are completely cut off from the outside world. At this time of heightened uncertainty, where we’re all worried about the spread of the Coronavirus, families of prisoners have no way of knowing their loved one’s condition, and prisoners have no way of knowing how the pandemic is affecting those back home," Montell added.

She affirmed that "keeping prisoners in these circumstances is a violation of their rights to family life and to humane treatment."