Israel's Supreme Court Justice Eliyahu Mazza on Sunday issued an interim order barring the Red Cross from visiting Lebanese prisoners Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani until the High Court of Justice issues another ruling, reported Haaretz newspaper.
The court ruled Thursday that Red Cross representatives could visit the two, but the family of missing airman Ron Arad asked Supreme Court President Aharon Barak to delay the ruling.
They want to appeal for another hearing on the prisoners' petition, this time in a special sitting of all 11 justices, said the paper.
The family says that the court did not take a number of legal matters into account, and was possibly damaging chances of obtaining information on Arad and four other Israelis captured by the Lebanese Hizbollah movement.
Obeid and Dirani are being held prisoner as bargaining chips.
The ruling Thursday infuriated the families of the three captured occupation soldiers being held incommunicado by the Lebanese movement.
According to Haaretz, when the petition was first introduced three years ago to allow the visits for Dirani, who has been held for the past seven years, and Obeid, held for the past 12, Israel's Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein believed the Red Cross visits should be allowed.
However, after last year's capture from the occupied Shabaa Farms of three soldiers - Benny Avraham, Omar Suwad and Adi Avitan - and the capture of reserve colonel Avraham Tannenbaum, Rubinstein notified the court he had changed his mind.
He said it was unreasonable to allow Red Cross visits to Obeid and Dirani as long as no information was forthcoming about the condition of the four Israelis being held by Hizbollah, the paper added.
Hizbollah has refused to arrange meetings for the soldiers with any international groups.
The parents, who were present in court Thursday and wept at the ruling, spoke of the unequal measures taken by the Red Cross.
"I'm not saying that the court should prevent the visit, but I'm asking that the Red Cross get members to meet our children, to get them lawyers as well," Haim Avraham said.
Kasen Sowad, father of Omar, also expressed his frustration, AFP said.
"First we should see our children, and then the state should allow the Red Cross to see Dirani and Obeid," he said - Albawaba.com
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