The Center for the Defense of Freedoms (Hurryyat) has warned about the dangers threatening the lives of male and female prisoners following the Israeli Knesset’s approval, on Monday evening, of a law allowing the execution of prisoners. The law passed its second and third readings with a majority of 62 votes, thereby entering into actual implementation.
Hurryyat stated that approving the execution law—despite widespread local, regional, and international criticism and condemnation—represents a challenge to global public opinion, the international community, the European Union, the United Nations, and international human rights institutions. It also constitutes a blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, which apply to the occupied Palestinian territory and the Palestinian people under occupation, and which guarantee the protection of civilians, including prisoners, under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Hurryyat further considered the law to be a major act of retaliation by the occupying power against the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and its historic struggle. This movement has long defended the rights of its people and their national aspirations. The law, according to Hurryyat, seeks to criminalize this struggle, undermine prisoners’ will, and diminish their national, political, legal, and moral standing as a leading force in the Palestinian national struggle.
The organization also pointed out that far-right parties, along with some opposition circles, have united against the prisoners’ movement to serve partisan, ideological, political, and electoral objectives. Prisoners’ lives and suffering, it said, have become part of electoral competition—especially after October 7—amid escalating targeting, abuse, and attempts to weaken their presence, role, and resilience, alongside the imposition of harsh collective punishment and the commission of severe war crimes and crimes against humanity against them.
Hurryyat warned that passing and implementing this law falls within the context of what it described as genocide committed by the occupying army against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and within prisons. It added that the Israeli government seeks, through this law, to legalize killings and executions, extending what it described as field executions in streets, alleys, refugee camps, cities, and villages in the West Bank, as well as slow executions and deliberate killings inside prisons due to policies of torture, abuse, starvation, and medical negligence. According to the statement, 89 prisoners have died since October 7 as a result of these practices, the latest being prisoner Marwan Harzallah from Ain refugee camp.
Hurryyat emphasized that the approval of the law represents a clear defiance of international and humanitarian law, which protects prisoners as individuals struggling for their people’s freedom and independence under the United Nations Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The organization strongly condemned what it described as a racist and discriminatory law targeting Palestinian individuals and prisoners solely for being Palestinian, noting that it does not apply to Israelis who kill Palestinians.
Finally, Hurryyat called on the international community, the UN Secretary-General, the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, parliaments, and international human rights organizations to urgently intervene to prevent the law’s implementation. It urged holding the Israeli government accountable for its serious consequences and for any resulting war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to take all necessary measures and sanctions to stop its enforcement.
It also called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to take action to hold accountable those responsible for passing and approving the law, and to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes against the Palestinian prisoners’ national movement in Israeli prisons.