"Israel's" extremist police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, released a video showcasing construction of a new execution facility built specifically to hang Palestinians convicted under the occupation's military court system.

In the video, Ben-Gvir runs through a list of pledges he says he has kept. "I promised to end the leniency in the prison service; this was fulfilled in full," he says. "I promised to legislate the death penalty for terrorists; this was done. I promised to establish a facility; this is being carried out."

He goes on to say that when Palestinians are killed carrying out attacks, "it's very good that this is the case," but adds that until now, there was no mechanism for Palestinians who survive.

Under the new system, he says, anyone convicted will be brought to the facility, where "there will be viewing rooms, victims' families will come," to watch the execution, a setup he says is modeled on the United States.

Law applies only to Palestinians

The gallows follow directly from legislation Ben-Gvir has long pushed for. The Knesset passed the death penalty law earlier this year by a vote of 62 to 48, requiring military courts to hand down capital punishment as the default sentence unless judges identify "special circumstances" justifying life imprisonment instead.

Crucially, the law is written so that only Palestinians face this punishment. Jewish Israelis convicted of similar offenses are shielded, since the statute applies exclusively to murder carried out with "intent to deny the existence of the state of Israel", a threshold Palestinian defendants are effectively presumed to meet while Jewish extremists are not.

Amnesty International's senior director Erika Guevara-Rosas said when the law passed that it strips away basic protections against arbitrary killing and fair trial rights, calling it a reinforcement of "Israel's" system of apartheid against Palestinians.

Source:Websites