TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- The so-called security committee in the Israeli Knesset has advanced a bill pushed by extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners.
Lawmakers in the committee voted 4-1 for the bill, during a recent Knesset session. Three other votes are needed for the bill to become law. 
The draft specifies executions for those convicted of killings or aiming to harm Israel and the “revival of the Jewish people” – in other words, those resisting Israeli occupation by carrying out armed operations.
The bill would not apply to Zionists who kill Palestinians. 
The committee’s legal advisor, Iddo Ben Yitzhak, warned that voting during the Knesset recess is not valid because the discussion preceding the vote did not include input from the security establishment. 
The only MK who voted against the bill was Gilad Kariv of the so-called democrats party. “Shame on you, there are hostages,” he said, referring to Israeli captives held in Gaza. 
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coordinator for negotiations on the captives, Gal Hirsch, also opposed the bill. 
Hirsch warned that advancing the bill could put captives held in Gaza at risk. 
Hirsch went on to say on X that he urged Netanyahu “that the issue being discussed today in the committee not be brought to the plenum before a thorough discussion is held in the cabinet, where I will be able to present the full picture and my own assessment.” 
Ben Gvir said people in Netanyahu’s office asked him to postpone the death penalty discussions, but that he refused. 
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) referred to the bill as “unprecedented savagery.”
Prior to the formation of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, Ben Gvir had been demanding the death penalty for Palestinians and, at one point, even made the demand as a condition for his joining the government. 
Since assuming the role of security minister, Ben Gvir has tightened the already repressive measures against Palestinians in the Israeli prison system. 
Earlier this month, Israel’s high court ruled that Palestinian prisoners were not being properly fed. 
Last month, PPS reported that Israeli forces used police dogs and tear gas during a series of repressive raids against women held in Damon Prison. 
The assaults took place on 4, 8, 10, and 14 August, when detainees were handcuffed, forced from their cells in a manner described as humiliating, and then led to the prison yard with their heads pushed down.
PPS said these attacks are not new, but a form part of a systematic policy against Palestinian men and women in detention, which has escalated to unprecedented levels since the start of the genocidal war against Gaza.