The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy condemns the arrest by Israeli occupation forces of Amal Ghazi Mohammed al-Rifi (60) and her daughter Yasmin Rifaat Mohammed al-Rifi (33) while they were returning to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing after a trip for medical treatment in the Arab Republic of Egypt. The arrest is a serious violation of their right to return safely to their home and family.
The Israeli authorities decided to extend the two women’s detention until 3 December 2026, and at the same time issued an order preventing them from meeting their lawyer. This raises serious concerns about the conditions of their detention and their physical and psychological safety, particularly as their arrest followed their return from a medical trip and they are being denied the legal contact needed to ascertain their situation.
The arrest of a 60-year-old woman and her daughter while returning from treatment reflects a grave level of disregard for basic human rights. It turns a journey for treatment and a return home into a source of fear and suffering, instead of a safe path for patients and citizens returning to their families.
The arrest of the two women brings to seven the number of people arrested by the Israeli forces at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings, including two women, while travelling to or returning to the Gaza Strip.
The repetition of these arrests threatens to turn the crossings into traps for travellers and endangers Palestinians’ right to travel, to receive treatment, to return, and to move freely and safely.
Preventing the two detainees from meeting their lawyer is a serious violation of legal safeguards and heightens concerns about what they may be subjected to during interrogation and detention.
What is the role of the European Union mission operating at the Rafah crossing? Are there any effective guarantees to protect travellers, patients and those returning to the Gaza Strip?
The international presence at the crossing must not be limited to administrative procedures while citizens are arrested after trips for treatment and travel.
The continuation of these practices will deepen the fears of thousands of Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip, especially patients who were forced to travel for treatment, and may lead some of them to hesitate to return for fear of arrest or detention. This would impose an additional restriction on their natural right to return to their homeland.
We demand he immediate release of Amal al-Rifi and her daughter Yasmin, the cancellation of the order preventing them from meeting their lawyer, disclosure of their place of detention and the conditions of their interrogation, guarantees for their physical and psychological safety, and that their family be allowed to check on them without delay.
We call on the European Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and international human rights and humanitarian organisations to intervene urgently to follow their case and to press for an end to the arrest of Palestinians at the crossings, and for clear guarantees that prevent the use of travel, treatment and return as a means of arrest and reprisal.
The Rafah crossing must be a gateway to life, treatment and safe return, not a trap for arresting Palestinians, and that the continued detention of a mother and daughter after a trip for treatment, while denying them a meeting with their lawyer, requires immediate international action to guarantee their freedom and their safe return to their family.
Oct 21st, 2026
The Palestinian Center for Prisoners Advocacy
