Call to action against the “Prisoners’ Execution Law” in occupied Palestine: Globalize the Intifada!

On Monday, 30 March, 2026 – the 50^th Palestinian Land Day – the Zionist Knesset adopted in its third and final reading, the “execution law” targeting Palestinian prisoners by a vote of 62 and 48, including that of war criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Notorious fascist Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated its passage by uncorking a bottle of champagne on the floor of the Knesset for a bloodthirsty celebration, cheering openly at the attempted legitimization of the genocide of Palestinians behind occupation bars.

There are over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners – alongside Lebanese and other Arab prisoners – held in the occupation’s dungeons, already subjected to an institutionalized regime of torture, physical and sexual assault and abuse, medical neglect and mistreatment, whose lives are at risk. Since the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood and the over 2.5 years of genocide in Gaza, over a hundred Palestinian prisoners have already been martyred behind bars, not counting the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza whose bodies were returned in mass graves and bags, shot dead by the occupation, their bodies and organs opened in many cases, with their hands shackled or zip-tied behind their backs.

We must not allow this moment to pass alongside the numerous crimes of the occupation regime. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins our voices with those of the Palestinian resistance movements and prisoners’ organizations to raise our shouts of outrage and to emphasize: This is the time to globalize the intifada, to take the streets in mass mobilization and direct action, to rise up for the prisoners, who sacrifice their freedom and their lives for the liberation of Palestine and the defense of humanity. It is our responsibility to organize and act to save the lives of the prisoners and free them from the horrors of captivity with an uprising for the prisoners, not only in Palestine but everywhere around the world.  

The Zionist entity – and its imperialist and colonialist sponsors, allies and forebears – have always treated incarceration and assassination as parallel tools of oppression directed against the organizing, resistance and struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation. This law seeks to impose a veneer of “legitimacy” of what is nothing more than the ongoing practice of colonialists assassinating the leaders of liberation movements, in an attempt to strangle the Palestinian people and their will to resist with the hangman’s noose specified in the text of the law. Just as the repeated assassinations of revolutionary and resistance leaders over the decades have failed to quell the resistance in Palestine, Lebanon and throughout the region, so too will this bloody oppression smash up against the rocks of the people’s dedication to liberate their land.

The blatant racism and fascism of the Zionist regime is written explicitly into the text of the law. It applies to Palestinians, mostly from the West Bank, tried in military courts by the occupation army, but also to Palestinians from Jerusalem, 1948 occupied Palestine and Gaza tried in so-called “civil courts,” for whom death or life sentence may be chosen. These executions specifically target only Palestinians engaged in resistance; not only is settler violence ignored and rewarded in practice, it is legally exempt from the execution law. Of course, unlike the cruel settler violence directed daily against Palestinians remaining on their land, Palestinian revolutionary armed struggle is not only morally just and a natural response of a people denied their homes, lands and homeland – it is entirely legally justified, as peoples have a well-defined and recognized right under international law to resist foreign occupation and colonial domination by all means, including and especially armed struggle.

Under the law, the executions must be carried out by hanging, as an explicit form of legalized, racist lynching; during his campaign for the bill, Ben-Gvir adorned his suit with a pin of a hangman’s noose as an open threat on the lives of Palestinians. In addition, these assassination executions are to be carried out within 90 days of sentencing. The law also purports to prohibit the most effective mechanism of liberating Palestinian prisoners – that is, prisoner exchanges with the Resistance. This is an attempt to suppress the plans and actions of resistance forces to achieve a prisoner exchange by excluding those with the most severe sentences; however, in reality, prisoner exchanges are not a matter of law and legal calculation, but are achieved solely through the imposition of force and power by the oppressed against the occupier and oppressor.

Of course, the slaughter of Palestinian prisoners is not a new goal of the occupation regime. On a daily basis, occupation forces carry out arrest/assassination raids in which they deliberately target Palestinians for assassination under the pretext of attempted arrest, and regularly deny treatment to injured Palestinians as they are martyred under arrest. Assassination has become part and parcel of the siege on Gaza, with police officers and land defenders targeted on a near-daily basis by occupation bombs and drones. Palestinians inside the occupation jails are subjected to escalated and institutional medical neglect, a crisis that has become only more severe since 7 October 2023.

The law, much like “administrative detention,” under which over 3,600 Palestinians are jailed without charge or trial, recalls the British execution policy against Palestinians in resistance. Indeed, Fouad Hijazi, Mohammad Jamjoum, and Ataa al-Zeer, three Palestinian revolutionary prisoners executed by the British in 1930, have become icons of the prisoners’ movement, while the song in their honor, “From Akka Prison,” has remained one of its anthems for nearly a century.

The “Execution Law” is part and parcel of the Zionist-imperialist genocide against the Palestinian people as a whole, against their resistance, and their leadership. Currently, the prisoners with lengthy sentences are leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and of the resistance as a whole, and, indeed, of our international anti-imperialist movement for justice and liberation. Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Ahmad Sa’adat, Ibrahim Hamed, Hassan Salameh, Jamal Abu al-Haija, Muhannad Shreim, Anas Jaradat and all of the leaders of the prisoners’ movement remain a compass point for the struggle as a whole, and the occupation is terrified of their role and impact. It is for this reason that it has refused to release them in any prisoner exchange, and it is attempting to prevent the development of new such leaders through their immediate execution. It is not an action of strength, but one of desperation, as the resistance in southern Lebanon is defending its land with immense bravery, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Yemen, and the Resistance in Iraq hit the occupying entity and imperialist bases on a daily and hourly basis.

Further, the “Execution Law” is part of a comprehensive form of warfare on the prisoners, the resistance, and the Palestinian people as a whole. The Zionist regime has always tried to prevent, undermine and tear apart the resistance through displays of bloody violence an threats, and to cause families and loved ones to discourage their children from joining the resistance in order to protect them from the torture, abuse, and assassination they may suffer at the hands of the occupation regime. This law is yet another attempt to accomplish this goal and to shake the popular cradle of the resistance; however, it is clear to all that attempts to pacify or mollify the occupation forces are met with nothing more than more killing, land theft, hordes of settlers, dispossession and massacres, as has been proven in the refugee camps of the West Bank.

This “Execution Law” – as it applies to forthcoming events – has a parallel law also proceeding through the Knesset, targeting the Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners referred to as the “Nukhba” or “elite” prisoners, resistance fighters imprisoned as part of Al-Aqsa Flood, or as they defended Gaza or South Lebanon from invading occupation forces, for execution. Of course, these prisoners – largely held at the notorious torture camps such as Sde Teiman or Rakevet, the underground section of Ramle prison – represent those who have sacrificed most bravely in order to seek the liberation of Palestine, and the liberation of their imprisoned brothers and sisters.

In a collective statement, the Palestinian Resistance Factions said, “These laws, despite their cruelty, danger, and fascism, reveal the state of fear, incapacity, and bankruptcy of the zionist entity more than they reflect its power. For the prisoners whom the enemy tried to reduce to numbers inside the cells have become a symbol of dignity and steadfastness. Every attempt to harm them sheds light once again on the justice of their cause and exposes the claims of adherence to the law and human rights….Let our slogan be that rights are not executed, dignity is not hanged, what the prisons failed to achieve, the gallows will not achieve, and the enemy will pay the price for its actions and its criminal laws.”

As a global anti-imperialist movement, among Palestinians in exile and diaspora, and among liberation movements and every human who struggles for justice, we must meet this horrific law – and the ongoing aggression on Palestine, Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran — with nothing less than complete rejection and a globalized intifada. Now, more than ever, it is time to ensure that the ambassadors of genocide are expelled around the world and diplomatic relations are ended with the Zionist entity; that the Zionist courts and legal system are recognized globally as a mere façade for a killing machine targeting Palestinians; that Zionist officials and the imperialist powers that enable and direct them are held accountable by all means through legal, popular, and grassroots action everywhere. Every one of the lives of our prisoners, our resistance fighters, our strugglers and our martyrs is precious and dear, and must carry a high cost, with the kind of pressure that goes beyond words of condemnation into actions of isolation and the imposition of accountability. The liberation of the prisoners is the gateway to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

At an international level, it is our responsibility to act. All of these crimes are enabled by the imperialist powers – first and foremost the United States, but also Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Australia, and the European Union as a whole – that criminalize the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people while arming their killers, and that view the crimes of the occupier as the “dirty work of the West.” This is a moment for action, and mobilization, at all levels of struggle – we must make it clear that, as an international movement, we will not abandon our prisoners; instead, we must be a meaningful part of winning their liberation.