Gilad Shalit - International Law

International Law

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) repeatedly asked Hamas for permission to visit Shalit to ascertain his conditions of detention and treatment. Hamas refused the requests.

An ICRC representative said that under international humanitarian law Shalit is entitled to regular and unconditional contacts with his family. On 25 June 2007, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem issued a statement saying "international humanitarian law absolutely prohibits taking and holding a person by force in order to compel the enemy to meet certain demands, while threatening to harm or kill the person if the demands are not met", and thus holding Shalit as a hostage to their demands is a war crime. B'Tselem also noted that denying access to ICRC visitations is also a violation of international law.

Israeli NGO Monitor said that Shalit's abductors breach several provisions of the Third Geneva Convention, e.g., the right to humane treatment (Art. 13); the right to have knowledge of a POW's location (Art. 23); and the right to unfettered access to the Red Cross (Art. 126).

Human Rights Watch also stated that Hamas authorities were obligated by the laws of war to allow Shalit to correspond with his family, and noted that three letters and a voice recording cannot be counted as regular correspondence. HRW also called for him to receive visits from the ICRC, and said that the prolonged incommunicado detention of Shalit was cruel and inhumane and amounted to torture.

A UN fact-finding mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone assigned to investigate the Gaza War, which released its Report in September 2009, called for Shalit to be released.

In June 2010, on the fourth anniversary of Shalit's kidnapping, Human Rights Watch made a statement describing Hamas' treatment of Shalit as "cruel and inhuman". saying it illustrates the UN definition of torture and violates the international rules of war by prohibiting him from having contact with his family or visits from the Red Cross.

Gerald Steinberg, president of "human rights watchdog NGO Monitor", was quoted in October 2011 as saying that many human rights organizations, "such as the UN Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, Gisha, and the International Red Cross demonstrated very little interest" in the Shalit case.