Israel has designated a dedicated wing for Palestinians sentenced to death, including an execution chamber and observation booths, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced on Wednesday, prompting the director of the Palestinian Prisoners Society to call for urgent international intervention.
The step represents what Abdullah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), described to the Anadolu news agency as part of the “ongoing determination of the Israeli occupation system” to transform incitement and enacted legislation into practical measures aimed at carrying out executions. He denounced the preparations to implement the legislation as a “crime against humanity” and charged that they further efforts to use Palestinian detainees “as political bargaining chips.”
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The death-penalty law underpinning the facility was passed by the Israeli Knesset in March, promoted by the most extremist Zionist factions. In May, the head of the occupation army’s Central Command, Avi Bluth, extended its application to the military court system in the occupied West Bank, granting those military tribunals full authority to impose summary executions on captured civilians.
The law’s principal objective, according to the text, is to undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian national movement and criminalize the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
The legislation is applied in the military courts that try Palestinians in the West Bank, where defendants are denied the protections afforded by a civilian judicial system. Arab-Israeli legislators have petitioned the Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional, arguing that it violates the rights to life, dignity, and equality, and that it discriminates against Palestinians through its enforcement in the West Bank military courts.
Israeli authorities are building a prison wing with an execution chamber for Palestinian prisoners sentenced to death. pic.twitter.com/kfffN1fkS0
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 19, 2026
Israeli prisons currently hold approximately 9,400 Palestinian prisoners, including 94 women, more than 350 children, 3,244 administrative detainees, and 1,320 individuals classified as illegal combatants – a category that may include medical doctors and other professionals.
In a report titled “Welcome to Hell,” the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem said that Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime “has turned its prisons into a network of torture camps for Palestinians, as part of a coordinated offensive against Palestinian society with the aim of destroying its existence.” The report, which aligns with findings from the UN, international NGOs, and Palestinian organizations, documents practices including torture, sexual abuse, and deprivation of sleep, food, or medical care – many of which are imposed on detainees held under “administrative detention,” a procedure that allows Zionist authorities to hold individuals without formal charges or prior trial.
Zaghari also held the international community accountable for the persistence of such measures, citing the “international silence” that he said has enabled Israel to continue its repressive policies amid ongoing attacks against Palestinians.
Separately, an update from the Gaza health authorities on Wednesday placed the toll from the Israeli military escalation since October 2023 at 73,407 dead and 174,335 wounded.
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