April 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Israel's Minister of National Security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, has called for the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners as a “solution” to overcrowding in prisons, which are experiencing space problems as a result of the intense detention campaigns carried out. by the Israeli Army since the attacks by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7.
“I am glad that the Government has approved my proposal that would allow the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to build 936 (in total 1,600) additional places for security prisoners. (…) The death penalty for terrorists is the correct solution to the problem of incarceration, until then, I am happy that the Government has approved the proposal that I brought,” he published on his account on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
In that sense, Ben Gvir explained that these additional places will allow Israeli prisons to “accommodate more terrorists” while providing a “partial solution.”
It should be noted that the “security prisoners” to which the minister refers are those detainees who are suspected or who have been convicted of committing crimes against Israeli security of a “nationalist” nature, according to the NGO Adalah (Legal Center for Human Rights). of the Arab Minority in Israel).
In early March, Israeli authorities had to release administrative detainees who had one month left in detention due to lack of prison space. It is a type of arbitrary detention of Palestinians used by the Israeli Army and that can be renewed indefinitely based on secret information under the presumption that those arrested could commit a crime at some point in the future, as reported by several Human Rights NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) or the Israeli peace organization BTselem.
