Israeli bill to impose death penalty on Palestinian ‘terror’ suspects a ‘crime against humanity’
The head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has described an Israeli bill to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian “terrorism” suspects as a crime against humanity.
Abdullah al-Zaghari told Al Jazeera that the bill, introduced by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party and backed by Netanyahu, underlines Israel’s disregard for international law.
In a separate statement, the society said the Israeli state was already carrying out extrajudicial executions against Palestinians “through deliberate execution during arrest, interrogation, assassination or fatal medical negligence, as part of a pattern of systematic medical crimes”.
“What is happening … is nothing more than an additional step to entrench a crime that has been practised for decades,” the statement said.
In Israeli abuse video scandal, focus on leaker eclipses attention given to original crime
The arrest of the former top lawyer in the Israeli military for the leak of a video showing Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military prison is creating a political and legal storm in Israel.
You have the Israeli government accusing Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalm of blood libel against the Israeli army, of defaming Israeli soldiers. Netanyahu went as far as saying this was the most dangerous assault on Israel’s image since its establishment.
Many in Israel are fearful that Netanyahu and his coalition partners will use this as a pretext to introduce the changes they want in the Israeli military and judiciary.
There is so much focus on the fact that this video was leaked, at the expense of discussing how this crime actually happened – and the fact that the UN says that these kinds of crimes are being committed in a systematic manner.
In one way, it’s a way to shift attention from the fact that these crimes are happening, by focusing on this woman and the fact that she leaked the video.
