WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Supreme Emergency Committee for Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs says the number of Palestinians held in the occupying regime’s prisons with neither charge nor trial under so-called administrative detention has exceeded 1,000 for the first time in 15 years.
“This figure requires urgent movement at all levels to stand against the fascist policies of the Israeli occupation authorities which are completely ignoring international law,” the committee said. It reiterated its full support for all the “measures planned by the administrative detainees,” noting that it will mobilize as much support as possible for any planned protests.
“All of the prisoners are united against the increasingly aggressive Israeli policies against them,” added the committee. “The only demand for all the administrative detainees is to end the oppressive and aggressive Israeli policies against them as they are being held without trials or indictment.”
More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, with dozens of them serving multiple life sentences.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the detentions and harsh conditions in the occupying regime’s jails.
Senior Palestinian officials say the Zionist regime must be held accountable for its persecution of Palestinian people, including its mass and arbitrary detentions.
Palestinian inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Commission of Detainees Affairs said the Zionist regime’s passing of legislation to legalize the death penalty against Palestinians further exposes the murderous nature of the occupying regime, warning that Tel Aviv will soon pay the price for the controversial measure.
In a statement, Qadri Abu Bakr said the Israeli law was not the first of its kind as the Zionist regime is executing Palestinians on a daily basis.
Earlier in the day, the Knesset (Israeli parliament) gave preliminary approval to the bill, which would apply to Palestinians who kill Zionists, but not to Zionists who kill Palestinians.
Under the legislation, anyone who “intentionally or out of indifference causes the death of an Israeli citizen when the act is carried out from a racist motive or hate to a certain public… and with the purpose of harming the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in its homeland.”
The measure is part of a broader drive by the Zionist regime to curb the powers of the judiciary, which has sparked mass protests.
“This is not the first law of its kind. Our prisoners have no fear of execution. Israel will soon pay the price for passing this legislation,” Abu Bakr said. “The approval of the law clearly showed the truth about Israel and exposed it to the world’s public opinion.”
He added the occupying reigme was not compelled to approve the death penalty law because the regime keeps executing Palestinians on a daily basis as was the case in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Nablus and Ariha.