Ben Gvir: Knesset Set to Discuss Death Penalty Law for Palestinian Prisoners

Date: 19 November 2023 - 21:47

News ID: ۱۲۱۶۲۴

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s parliament is set to discuss a controversial draft law on “executing Palestinian prisoners” for initial approval this week, far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has said.
Ben Gvir in a post on X (formerly Twitter) said that he will bring the death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners, already prepared by his Otzma Yehudit party, to the Knesset on Monday.
“The Knesset will discuss on Monday preparations for the first reading of the death penalty law for Palestinian prisoners,” he wrote.
He added that the draft “is expected to receive support by all members of the Knesset.”
Last March, in a preliminary reading, the Knesset approved a draft law that stipulates that courts can impose the death penalty on those who kill an Israeli with nationalistic motivation. However, it would not apply to an Israeli who killed a Palestinian.
The primary legislation was submitted by Ben Gvir and supported by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was met with a wave of opposition.
Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, vowed that such policies would not deter the Palestinian people from exercising their right to resistance against the occupying regime and its illegal settlers.
The death penalty law has been proposed in Israel more than once in recent years, but the Knesset has so far refused to legislate it. The draft law must be improved three times in the Knesset to become effective.
In a related development, Israel “assassinated” another Palestinian prisoner, bringing to six the number of the inmates who died in an Israeli detention center since October 7 after Gaza-based resistance groups launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, a rights organization said.
The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs announced in a statement that Thaer Samih Abu Assab, a resident of Qarawat Bani Hassan town northwest of Salfit in the northern West Bank, died late on Saturday in the Negev desert prison.
The 38-year-old Abu Assab was detained on May 27, 2005, and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Qaddoura Fares, the head of the commission, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is “systematically assassinating” Palestinian detainees.
Fares held all Western powers supporting the Israeli occupation and oppression fully responsible for the ongoing crimes against Palestinians, especially the non-stop genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip, denouncing their abject failure to stop the regime’s unlawful occupation and ethnic cleansing in the besieged territory.
Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention. They say the so-called administrative detention violates their right to due process since the evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.