Palestinian prisoner advocacy organizations have condemned the Israeli Knesset’s advancement of a death penalty bill, warning that it represents a dangerous new stage in the occupation’s assault on Palestinian detainees.

In a joint statement on Sunday, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) denounced the Israeli “National Security Committee” for approving the draft legislation, which is now set to go before the Knesset for its first reading.

“This move comes as no surprise in light of the unprecedented brutality of the occupation since the genocidal war on Gaza began,” the statement read, stressing that the measure seeks to legitimize what Palestinians have long described as “slow executions” in Israeli prisons.

For decades, rights groups and former detainees have documented systematic policies of medical neglect, denial of basic needs, torture, and deliberate starvation. The statement said these policies have escalated since October 2023, making the past two years the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian captive movement.

Recent figures illustrate the scale of the crisis. As of September 2025, over 11,100 Palestinians are being held in official Israeli prison facilities — the highest number since the Second Intifada. This figure excludes thousands more held in military camps and interrogation centers. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have detained more than 19,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem, including women and minors, while an estimated 15,000 others have been arrested in Gaza during the ongoing invasion.

Human rights organizations have also documented widespread abuses against detainees, including beatings, waterboarding, sexual assaults, and systematic deprivation of food and medical care. At least 77 Palestinians have died in custody between October 2023 and August 2025, most as a result of torture and medical neglect.

Despite international law prohibiting the use of capital punishment in occupied territories, the statement warned that the Israeli government seeks to enshrine it, treating itself as above any accountability. “Dozens of prisoners have already been executed extrajudicially since the war began. This law is an attempt to provide a false legal cover for ongoing crimes,” the groups said.

The death penalty proposal is not new. Far-right Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir first revived it in 2022, and the Knesset approved a preliminary reading in early 2023. Now included in coalition agreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, the legislation would allow courts to impose capital punishment on Palestinians accused of killing Israelis — including in cases deemed as “negligence.”

Palestinian institutions stressed that the law adds to decades of repressive measures imposed on detainees, who remain the most vulnerable targets of Israel’s occupation system. They warned that its passage would mark a new and even bloodier stage in the systematic campaign against the Palestinian people. (ILKHA)