UN rights chief urges halt to Israeli plan to legalize execution of Palestinians

UN human rights chief urged the Israeli regime to halt plans to impose mandatory death sentences exclusively on Palestinians, warning the proposal violates international law and entrenches discriminatory justice.

Volker Türk, in a statement on Friday, warned that such a punishment would increase the “unacceptable risk” of executing innocent people.

“A series of proposals before the Israeli Knesset to lower the threshold for using capital punishment raise serious concerns with respect to discrimination against Palestinians and violation of their due process rights, as well as other breaches of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” read the statement.

“When it comes to the death penalty, the United Nations is very clear, and opposes it under all circumstances,” he said. “It is profoundly difficult to reconcile such punishment with human dignity and raises the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people.”

According to the UN High Commissioner, such proposals are inconsistent with Israel’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

He also warned that the introduction of mandatory death sentences, which leave no discretion to the courts, violates the right to life.

“The proposal also raises other human rights concerns, including on the basis that it is discriminatory, given it will exclusively apply to Palestinians.”

Türk said the language of such legislation, along with statements from Israeli politicians, indicates that this is intended to apply only to Palestinians, who are often convicted after unfair trials.

He recalled that denying any Palestinian from the West Bank and Gaza the fair trial guarantees set out in the Fourth Geneva Convention amounts to a war crime.

Israeli court: Netanyahu regime deprives Palestinian abductees of basic food for survival

In a rare move, Israel’s Supreme Court rules that the regime has deprived Palestinian abductees of even the most basic nutritional requirements for survival.

Under the draft legislation, Israeli courts – both civil and military – would gain expanded power to impose mandatory death sentences on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis, when such acts are deemed to have been motivated by nationalistic, racist, or hate-based reasons, or intended to harm the occupying entity or its settlers.

It would also remove the authority for a government or president to pardon anyone who has been sentenced to death for those crimes, and it does not require a panel of judges in a given case to reach a unanimous decision on the sentence.

Palestinian advocates warn that the framework eliminates the safeguards that previously existed for Palestinian defendants.

They say that the move to legalize the death penalty is part of a broader effort to strip Palestinians of their protections under international humanitarian law as an occupied people with a right to resistance.

The bill clearly targets Palestinians, even as the Israeli regime carries out deadly attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and the military continues its killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, since the start of its genocidal war on the besieged territory in October 2023.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir