RAMALLAH, September 28, 2025 (WAFA) – The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement that the approval by the so-called National Security Committee in the Israeli Knesset of a draft law paving the way for its first reading, after passing a preliminary reading before the genocide war, is no longer surprising in light of the unprecedented brutality practiced by the occupation regime.
The statement stressed that for decades, the Israeli occupation regime has pursued a policy of slow executions against hundreds of prisoners in its jails, using systematic methods that have claimed the lives of dozens, adding that these measures have intensified to an unprecedented level since the start of the genocidal war, making the current period the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement.
The statement stressed that despite the clarity of international law, which prohibits the death penalty, the occupation’s insistence on codifying this crime and granting it a so-called legal cover once again affirms that the occupation state acts as though it is above the law and beyond accountability.
The statement stressed that this was further exposed by the genocidal war, which revealed the failure of the international community and its systematic complicity with the colonial killing regime.
The joint statement added that the occupation’s brutality has reached an indescribable level, as it has killed dozens of prisoners and detainees since the genocidal war and is now seeking to entrench the crime of execution through the enactment of a special law.
This law, the statement noted, comes in addition to a repressive legislative system that for decades has targeted all aspects of Palestinian life, much of it directed specifically against prisoners and detainees.
It is worth noting that the draft law to execute prisoners is not new. It has been proposed repeatedly over the past years, most recently in 2022 when far-right Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reintroduced it with a series of amendments. The bill was approved in a preliminary reading by the Knesset in 2023 and has now been approved by a special Knesset committee, paving the way for its first reading.
T.R.
