Human rights organizations petitioning the High Court of Justice warned this week that emergency detention measures enacted in the wake of the October 7 war are no longer justified and risk becoming a permanent feature of Israeli law. The warning came despite a sharp decline in both the number of detainees and new arrests of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip following the end of the war and the start of the ceasefire.
In a response filed on Wednesday to the state’s latest update, the petitioners argued that the continued extension of temporary provisions permits prolonged detention without judicial review and delays access to legal counsel.
Virtual court hearings have become disproportionate and unreasonable in light of the changed circumstances on the ground.
The measures, first enacted on December 18, 2023, as a temporary amendment to the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, have since been extended six times.
The most recent extension, approved on December 25, 2025, prolongs the emergency framework until March 31, 2026, with a related declaration under the law set to expire on February 2.
The petition - filed by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, HaMoked, Gisha, and Adalah - challenges three core elements of the emergency regime: extended timeframes for issuing detention warrants, delays in initial judicial review, and the prolonged prevention of meetings between detainees and their lawyers, as well as the continued use of virtual hearings.
Petition says Gaza detention rules outlived wartime need
In its December 31 response, the state argued that ongoing military activity in Gaza, an “exceptional” number of detainees, and the expectation of renewed arrests justified maintaining the emergency arrangements.
The petitioners rejected that position, contending that those factual assumptions no longer hold.
According to state figures, the total number of detainees under the law declined from 2,850 in July 2025 to 1,287 by the end of December, a decrease of more than 55%.
The number of new detainees subject to temporary detention orders fell by roughly 60% over the same period, from 100 in mid-July to 41 in late December. Between July and December 2025, 328 new detainees were arrested under the framework, compared to 445 during a shorter period earlier in the war.
The petitioners emphasized that this decline is critical because the emergency arrangements primarily affect new detainees - determining how long they can be held before judicial review, when permanent detention orders may be issued, and how long access to legal counsel can be denied.
While the Sixth Amendment slightly reduced some timeframes - shortening temporary detention warrants from 30 days to 25, requiring initial judicial review within 40 days instead of 45, and limiting the prevention of meetings with lawyers to 25 days rather than 45. The petitioners argued that the gaps between the emergency regime and ordinary law remain vast and unjustified.
Under the regular law, detention warrants must be issued within 96 hours, judicial review must take place within 14 days, and meetings with legal counsel may be barred for no more than 10 days.
“The shortening of the time periods does not cure the severe violation of detainees’ fundamental rights,” the petitioners wrote, arguing that the changes fail to reflect the dramatic shift in circumstances since the law’s enactment.
Particular criticism was directed at the continued use of virtual judicial hearings. The petitioners noted that the temporary law permitting remote hearings expired with the end of the war, and that all other detainees have since returned to in-person court appearances.
Nonetheless, the state chose to preserve virtual hearings for one population only - detainees from Gaza - without explanation or justification.
According to the petitioners, this creates an exceptional and discriminatory regime that undermines the right to a fair process by denying Gaza detainees the ability to appear physically before a judge.
More broadly, the organizations warned that the repeated extensions signal an attempt to entrench emergency powers permanently.
“The current situation raises serious concern that the respondents seek to introduce permanent changes to the law that violate the rights of detainees from Gaza, even after the circumstances that allegedly justified those changes have entirely ceased to exist,” the filing states.
The petitioners asked the court to issue a conditional order requiring the state to explain why the emergency provisions remain necessary to fulfill the law’s purpose, and why the temporary order should not be canceled in favor of applying the law in its ordinary form.