Legal Experts and Activists Outline International Accountability Strategy Over Israeli “Prisoner Execution Law”
Legal experts, political leaders and human rights activists have condemned Israel’s recently approved “death penalty for terrorists” law, describing it as “a lethal instrument of colonial despair” designed to institutionalise state-backed executions against Palestinian prisoners.
The warning came during an online seminar organised by the Global Alliance for Palestine (GAFP) in partnership with the Association of Students and Academics for Palestine (ASAP).
Speakers argued that the legislation — approved by the Israeli Knesset on 30 March — represents a formal legalisation of state-sponsored execution aimed at crushing Palestinian resistance through what participants described as “judicial terror”.
Warnings over the legalisation of executions
The session, moderated by Lujain Hamza of the Global Alliance for Palestine, focused on what participants described as a dangerous turning point in the legal architecture of the Israeli occupation.
Under the law, individuals convicted of acts resulting in the death of an Israeli citizen may face execution by hanging. According to speakers at the event, the legislation also imposes a rapid implementation mechanism intended to prevent meaningful legal appeals or diplomatic intervention before executions are carried out.
Mustafa Barghouti: “A fascistic consensus”
Mustafa Barghouti, founder of the Palestinian National Initiative and a member of the alliance’s steering committee, opened the discussion with a sharp critique of the political atmosphere surrounding the legislation.
Barghouti referred to reports describing celebrations among supporters inside the Knesset, including champagne and symbolic noose pins, portraying the scene as evidence of what he called an emerging “fascistic consensus” within Israeli politics.
He argued that the law was intended to obscure what he described as Israel’s existing record of extrajudicial killings of Palestinian detainees, framing the legislation as an attempt to grant legal legitimacy to escalating state violence.
Barghouti also criticised European governments for failing to impose sanctions, describing their inaction as a grave moral and political failure, and called for a complete boycott of the Israeli Knesset.
Khaled Mahajna describes conditions inside Sde Teiman
Human rights lawyer Khaled Mahajna — described as the first lawyer to enter the controversial Sde Teiman detention facility detention camp — delivered testimony detailing conditions inside Israeli detention facilities.
Mahajna argued that the new law cannot be separated from what he described as a broader system of systematic abuse and torture.
“Since that day, there have been countless violations — more than I can even fully recount,” he said, describing what he characterised as severe physical and psychological abuse within the prison system.
He alleged that more than one hundred Palestinian detainees had died inside Israeli prisons as a result of torture and mistreatment.
According to Mahajna, the law’s 90-day implementation period was designed not as an administrative measure, but as a mechanism intended to silence prisoners before testimony about prison conditions could reach the outside world.
“The scenes I witnessed inside Sde Teiman are horrific beyond description,” he said. “This war against prisoners must end, and there must be an international position against these Israeli laws.”
“Collective punishment through fear”
The psychological dimension of the legislation was addressed by Arab Barghouti, who leads the campaign for the release of his father, imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.
He argued that the law’s primary purpose was not justice, but the deliberate destruction of Palestinian social cohesion through fear and collective punishment.
According to Barghouti, the legislation is designed not only to target prisoners themselves, but also to terrorise their families and reinforce the message that no Palestinian — regardless of legal status or international profile — is beyond the reach of state violence.
Zahra Farouk: “Resistance must become organised”
British activist Zahra Farouk, a former political prisoner and student organiser with ASAP, connected the discussion to broader structures of repression internationally.
Drawing on her own experience of being detained for 15 months without charge following activism targeting Elbit Systems, Farouk called for a shift from symbolic solidarity toward organised political mobilisation.
She argued that effective resistance requires sustained pressure on institutions and governments providing material support to the occupation.
“What we are witnessing is not simply a legal change,” she said. “It is the construction of a network of torture camps.”
Farouk added that resistance movements must become “as organised and persistent as the system they seek to dismantle”.
Calls for an international accountability roadmap
Closing the seminar, moderator Lujain Hamza said the discussions would serve as the basis for what organisers described as a roadmap toward immediate international accountability.
“Last month, as a global alliance for Palestine, we developed a strategy to confront the Israeli propaganda machine,” she said.
“Today we are confronting a state execution machine directed at prisoners. There is still much work ahead. This effort is critically important — because this is the moment when silence itself becomes a death sentence.”
The webinar comes amid intensifying international debate over Israeli detention policies, the assault on Gaza and growing calls from activists and legal organisations for international investigations into alleged violations of humanitarian law.
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