Tomorrow, Monday 10 November 2025, 10 a.m., Israeli Supreme Court to Hear Petition by MK Ahmad Tibi and Adalah to Allow Knesset Members to Visit Palestinian Prisoners
The Israeli Supreme Court will hold a hearing tomorrow, 10 November 2025, at 10:00 a.m., on a petition filed by Member of the Knesset (MK) Ahmad Tibi and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel demanding that Knesset Members (MKs) be permitted to meet Palestinians classified by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) as security prisoners. The petition was filed in April 2024 after the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) implemented, for over a year, a policy that has prevented MK Tibi from holding meetings with Palestinian prisoners.
The hearing will take place in Courtroom C before the President of the Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Amit, Justice Dafna Barak-Erez, and Justice David Mints.
The petition argues that the conduct of Minister of National Security and the IPS constitutes action taken without legal authority and infringes upon MK Tibi’s ability to fulfill his parliamentary duties and to oversee the actions of the executive branch, especially in light of the mass number of reports of severe violence against Palestinian prisoners and the lack of oversight of their harsh and inhumane detention conditions. The petition further argues that subjecting parliamentary oversight to the approval of a government minister opens the door to discrimination among MKs based on their political positions, as demonstrated by Minister Ben-Gvir’s conduct. While Ben-Gvir has prohibited Arab opposition MKs from visiting Palestinian prisoners, classified as “security prisoners”, he has permitted coalition MKs to hold numerous visits with Israeli Jewish security prisoners.
On 9 July 2024, the Supreme Court issued an order nisi determining that the State must respond to the case on its merits and to remedies sought by MK Tibi and Adalah in their petition. Following a hearing on 11 September 2024, the Court ordered the respondents to provide the petitioners with a detailed paraphrase of the classified material presented ex parte, which the State subsequently provided. In response, the petitioners argued that these materials demonstrate a disparity in the arrangements for parliamentary visits to Palestinian prisoners versus Jewish Israeli prisoners, which constitutes discrimination. They further argued that the “security” reasons invoked by the state to block MK Tibi’s visit to Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti amount to a series of unfounded claims reflecting prejudice and racism that are unsupported by any concrete information and over which the IPS lacks both the authority and the expertise to assess.
Date: Monday, 10 November 2025
Time: 10:00 am
Location: Supreme Court, Jerusalem, Courtroom 3 — see Google Maps location here
Adalah Comms Team will be on-site to handle media queries. Tom Mehager, +972-52-4366355
Related Press Releases:
