Jerusalem, April 2, 2026 (WAFA) – International human rights and relief organizations called on the European Union to take urgent action against the law to execute Palestinian prisoners passed by the Israeli Knesset.
This came in a joint statement issued by 31 international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, in which they expressed their rejection of the law passed by the Knesset regarding the death penalty for Palestinians .
The organizations said in their statement: “As humanitarian aid and human rights organizations that have been working for years in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, we are deeply shocked by the Knesset’s decision to pass a bill that would make the death penalty mandatory in the West Bank, and apply only to Palestinians.”
She asserted that “although the law does not explicitly mention ethnic origin or nationality, it was effectively designed to target Palestinians.”
She noted that “the European Union consistently views the death penalty as cruel, inhuman and incompatible with human dignity in all circumstances,” adding that “the new Israeli law violates fundamental internationally recognized safeguards for those facing the death penalty.”
It considered that “the discriminatory nature of the law and the absence of fair trial guarantees constitute a violation of the right to life and of the provisions of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture.”
International organizations noted that the efforts of the European Union and its member states to call on Israel to change its policies have not yet yielded results, and that a review conducted by the Union in June of last year, based on Article 2 of the Convention, concluded that Israel had violated its human rights obligations due to serious violations committed against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem .
The organizations concluded their statement by saying: “Nine months on, it is long overdue to act. The EU must live up to its stated principles and legal obligations by, at a minimum and as an urgent measure, suspending the trade part of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and implementing the other measures proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in September 2025.”
The Israeli Knesset General Assembly approved, on Monday evening, in its second and third readings, the law to execute Palestinian prisoners. 62 members voted in favor of the law, while 48 voted against it, and one member abstained, in a move that sparked widespread condemnation and a wave of international anger .
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R.H.
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