Lawyers representing Palestinian detainees in Israel’s Ofer Military Court announced a strike on Tuesday, citing the “humiliating” treatment of defence lawyers, including preventing them from reaching the court by car and forcing them to walk.

According to the two organisations, since 7 October last year Israel has restricted the work of lawyers by preventing them from visiting prisoners at the beginning of the war and later deliberately declaring a state of emergency when the lawyers arrived at the prison and using that as an excuse to cancel the visit.
The statement added that the prison administration has deliberately procrastinated over providing responses to visit requests, with delays sometimes extending for two weeks or more. Moreover, prisoners are often attacked after lawyers’ visits, and orders are issued preventing groups of lawyers from visiting prisoners.
The prisoners’ rights organisations indicated that there are ongoing attempts by legal teams in the relevant institutions to break the restrictive measures through legal channels, and to continue submitting requests for prisoner visits, as well as submitting petitions to the courts, in addition to announcing collective protests against these measures.
The joint statement said that the measure imposed by the Ofer Military Court is not new, noting that it had tried to impose it months before the war.