Israeli court strikes out HaMoked petitions on Gaza detainees’ whereabouts, question open

Since October 2023, the Israeli rights group HaMoked has submitted requests for information about the whereabouts of individual Gaza residents. Some came back with a two-word answer, “no indication,” the group said in an update on Oct. 26.

HaMoked says “the State has stopped providing information about Palestinian prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross,” and that it has since become one of the few remaining channels between detainees and their families. It filed one hundred fourteen habeas corpus petitions. In some cases, the person was not located.

HaMoked counts 1,419 people held in Israeli prisons under the Unlawful Combatants Law as of October 2026, approximately 200 more than in November 2025. The law lets the state hold people it classifies as “unlawful combatants” without trial.

Three consolidated petitions, on Gaza residents arrested in July 2024, asked “whether, and in what way, the State is obliged to provide information about the whereabouts of a person” held under that law. On Aug. 21, the state asked the court to strike them out. On Oct. 12, it did so “without deciding on the principled question at its base” and faulted the state for declining to address the legal question.

Unfortunately, the State did not take up the challenge, preferring not to address the legal question – regrettably so.— Israel’s High Court of Justice, as quoted by HaMoked