A new law under discussion in the Israeli occupation’s Knesset has spread fear among Palestinian families and human rights organisations. On 28 September 2025, the Knesset’s National Security Committee approved draft legislation imposing the death penalty on any Palestinian who intentionally or negligently causes the death of an Israeli citizen “out of racial or ideological hatred, or with the aim of harming Israel.” The prisoner execution bill passed with 4–1 of the vote.
Prisoner execution bill reintroduced by Ben-Gvir
The prisoners’ execution bill is not new; it has been proposed repeatedly over the years. Most recently, in 2022, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party and an illegal settler who is responsible for the systematic torture of Palestinian prisoners — reintroduced the bill with amendments.
The bill passed a preliminary reading in 2023, and was approved by the Knesset’s ‘National Security Committee’ on September 28, in preparation for its first reading. Though the law requires two further readings in the Knesset to pass, for Palestinians under occupation this announcement marks a clear escalation in a system long built around mass arrests, indefinite detention, and an apartheid justice system.
The Israeli regime aims to legitimise the killing of Palestinian prisoners
The bill’s advancement during Gaza’s ongoing genocide has raised alarm among Palestinian detainee organisations. Both the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society and the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs warned that the law seeks to legitimise and institutionalise the continued killing of prisoners held in Israeli custody — effectively granting a formal licence for execution in a system that already differentiates between the rights afforded to Israeli and Palestinian detainees.
They denounced the law, calling it a codification of “systematic crimes”, and stated:
The occupation has reached unprecedented levels of brutality… Despite international law’s clear position criminalising the death penalty, the occupation’s ongoing efforts to legalise this crime and grant it a ‘legitimate’ status once again underscore that the occupying state acts above the law and beyond accountability… The occupation is now working to codify the crime of execution through specific legislation. This bill adds to a repressive legal system that has, for decades, targeted nearly every aspect of Palestinian life — particularly the rights and lives of prisoners and detainees.
If the bill becomes law, the death penalty would be mandatory, not optional
The draft bill, as outlined in a detailed statement by the Palestinian human rights group Al Mezan, mandates the death penalty for any detainee “convicted of murder motivated by racism or hostility toward a particular public, and under circumstances where the act was committed with the intent to harm the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in their homeland — mandatorily, not optionally or at the court’s discretion.”
The law removes the possibility of reducing a death sentence and makes it easier to impose one, allowing judges to order execution by simple majority rather than by unanimous decision.
Ben- Gvir not only calls to ‘open the gates of hell upon Gaza’ but says executing Palestinian ‘terrorists’ would free up prison space
Ben-Gvir’s rise in politics has been marked by aggressive language and direct threats targeting Palestinians. In June 2024, he publicly said that Palestinian prisoners should be “shot in the head”, and called for them to receive only minimal sustenance until a death-penalty statute is passed. In another provocative statement in April 2024, he argued that the “right solution” to overcrowding in Israeli occupation prisons is executing Palestinian “terrorists”.
Earlier this week, on 20 October 2025, Ben-Gvir also threatened to withhold his party’s support for coalition legislation unless the prisoners’ execution bill is brought to a vote within three weeks. His claim rests on a coalition agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which he says stipulates that a prisoner-execution law should be passed during the current Knesset term. He called on Netanyahu to “return to intense fighting, to conquer, to crush, to win.”
Now that the Israeli colonial settlers detained in Gaza have been returned, Ben-Gvir has again called — on Hebrew news channel TV 14 — for the genocide in Gaza to continue, saying:
“We must now stop everything (cancel the ceasefire). Now that we have received the (Israeli) captives from Gaza, we must return to war and open the gates of hell upon Gaza. The captives were the only reason we stopped the war. We must continue the war on Gaza, whether the Qataris and the Turks are there or not. Qatar and Turkey are our enemies.”
In Gaza and the West Bank, news of this bill is extremely worrying for the many families whose loved ones are already imprisoned under indefinite detention or military court systems, very often deprived of medical care and subjected to isolation and abuse. For them, the prisoners’ execution bill marks a profound shift — from fearing a long sentence or uncertain release to fearing execution.
Families of prisoners such as Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian political leader held in Israeli occupation prisons since 2002 and serving multiple life sentences, are particularly alarmed. Barghouti has faced continued abuse, reportedly being beaten unconscious in September 2025 by eight prison guards during a transfer, suffering multiple broken ribs and days of incapacitation, according to his son. In August, Ben-Gvir visited Barghouti in prison and posted a video taunting him — an act widely interpreted as politicised intimidation.
State-sanctioned killing
This proposed execution law comes amid an ongoing genocide in Gaza and heightened repression in the West Bank. Thousands have been arrested since October 2023 and 80 detainees dying in custody — often amid allegations of medical neglect or abuse.
The bill is now set to go before the Knesset for its first reading. If passed, the law would convert what is already structural oppression into state‑sanctioned killing. For Palestinians, it would mark a huge shift — a future in which the cell does not just imprison, but kills.
By Charlie Jaay
This post was originally published on Canary.