The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest terms the law approved by the Israeli Knesset entitled “Law for the Prosecution of Those Responsible for the October 7, 2023 Massacre”. The law establishes special military tribunals empowered to issue death sentences and is expected to be applied retroactively against hundreds of Palestinians. PCHR calls on the international community to intervene to halt the planned executions prepared by the Israel to provide legal legitimacy to decisions to kill hundreds of Palestinians through sham military courts.
This serious development targeting Palestinian detainees comes only weeks after another law was passed at the end of last March providing for the imposition of the death penalty against Palestinian detainees.1
“Over decades, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have employed various methods of brutal torture against Palestinian detainees, leading to the deaths of hundreds of them. Today, however, we stand on the brink of a new and far more dangerous phase: the commission of mass killings against hundreds of detainees following trials before sham courts that lack the most basic guarantees of justice. The Israeli judiciary has, for decades, provided legitimacy for Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, and this law, enacted by the legislative authority, comes as a further attempt to legitimize such crimes. This underscores the involvement and complicity of all judicial, legislative, and executive authorities within this racist settler-colonial regime in the crimes of genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing,” said Raji Sourani, PCHR’s Director.
The actual number of Palestinians, whether civilians or combatants, arrested by IOF since 7 October in both Israel and the Gaza Strip remains unknown. Many are held in military detention facilities that do not fall under the authority of the Israeli Prison Service. Over the past two and a half years, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has documented the enforced disappearance of 500 individuals, including children and women. Credible information indicates that they were arrested by the IOF, which continues to deny holding them in custody.
Palestinian detainees, including children and women, have been subjected to brutal torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including severe beatings, sleep deprivation, starvation, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. PCHR has previously published harrowing testimonies from recently released male and female detainees recounting the brutal sexual assaults and other abuses they endured while in Israeli custody. According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, since 7 October 2023, 90 Palestinian detainees, including 52 detainees from the Gaza Strip, have died in Israeli prisons and detention centers. However, the actual number is feared to be significantly higher.
The crimes of torture perpetrated by IOF against Palestinian male and female detainees constitute an integral part of the crime of genocide that those forces have continued to perpetrate in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.
PCHR reiterates its call on the international community to urgently intervene and take tangible and effective measures to stop the crime of genocide being committed against Palestinian detainees. PCHR further calls on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity, including torture and enforced disappearance committed against Palestinian male and female detainees, and to issue arrest warrants against those responsible for the commission of these crimes.
