ONGOING URGENT APPEAL: STOP THE EXECUTION OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ LAW 

 

Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Commission of Detainees’ Affairs & Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

 

March 29, 2026

 

Ramallah, occupied Palestine – On Monday, March 30, the Israeli occupation’s proposed “Prisoners’ Execution Law” is expected to be brought forward for its second and third readings in the Knesset, with a high likelihood of passage—despite sustained global appeals and unequivocal warnings from international human rights institutions condemning its adoption.

If enacted, this bill will mark a historic escalation—a new phase of openly sanctioned, politically motivated executions of Palestinian prisoners. It codifies state-sanctioned political murder and turns prisons into legalized killing grounds and central arenas of torture. Make no mistake: its passage would make it an extension of a multi-pronged system of genocide that has targeted Palestinian existence for decades—rendering the occupation’s prisons and detention camps a direct extension of genocidal policies and a central theater for their execution.

The law constitutes a profound violation of fundamental human rights and exposes decades of international complicity, lack of will, failure, and refusal to hold the settler-colony of “Israel” accountable. After years of calculated advancement by the regime—now reaching its brutal apex amid the genocide—this bill has become inseparable from the government’s political survival. The gallows are no longer symbolic; they are being institutionalized as a central tool of oppression and settler-colonial violence.

Under the most “extreme” and openly ideological government in the settler-colony’s history, the drive to pass this law has accelerated with alarming force. Led by minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and backed by a dominant right-wing bloc in the Knesset, the government has staked its very survival on its passage, with full backing from Benjamin Netanyahu—elevating the execution of prisoners into an explicit political doctrine and a defining pillar of the regime.

For decades, occupation authorities have practiced extrajudicial killing as a sustained policy—now risen to unprecedented levels. This includes targeted assassinations, a “shoot-to-kill” policy and sniper fire. Alongside these overt acts, a quieter but equally lethal system of both slow and direct killings operates within prisons, camps, and interrogation centers, where neglect, abuse, and torture systematically claim lives. Since the start of the genocide alone, more than 100 prisoners have been killed behind bars—marking the deadliest period in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

 

Based on information gathered by our organizations and others, here is an initial set of facts surrounding the execution of Palestinian prisoners bill: 

The law will not be applied retroactively; it will only take effect after its implementation. 

It will include two separate court systems: Military courts in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories and civilian courts in the 1948-occupied Palestinian territories (“Israel”). 

In “Israeli” military courts, Palestinian prisoners “convicted” of carrying out armed operations resulting in the death of an “Israeli” would face a mandatory death sentence, unless the court identifies exceptional circumstances warranting commutation to life imprisonment. 

Prisoners would retain the right to appeal; however, rulings would be decided by a simple majority rather than unanimity, and judges would not be required to hold senior military rank. 

In “Israeli” civil courts, however, a prisoner "convicted" carrying out armed operations resulting in the death of an “Israeli” faces a sentence of either life imprisonment or death; this legal hierarchy effectively transforms the death penalty into a primary and fundamental punishment against Palestinians.

Although this law will not apply to prisoners detained in connection with October 7, 2023 whom the occupation classifies as “elite,” a Knesset committee has approved a separate bill titled the "Law on the Trial of Participants in the October 7 Events." This bill establishes a special military tribunal that is likewise empowered to impose the death penalty, alongside other measures.

This push to formalize the execution of Palestinian prisoners is not incidental—it is the logical continuation and legal codification of ongoing, unchecked genocidal mass violence and erasure. The law is one among a wide arsenal of measures designed to entrench domination, crush Palestian society, and normalize the systematic murder of Palestinians. The occupation’s prisons and detention camps are not merely sites of imprisonment—they are central infrastructures of state murder and violence. Stop the execution of Palestinian political prisoners’s law before it is too late. 

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