Hamas: Ben-Gvir’s threat to kill Palestinian abductee paves way for more crimes against inmates

The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has denounced so-called Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s threat to execute Palestinian abductee Hassan Salameh, warning that the remarks could pave the way for further crimes and atrocities against Palestinian inmates.

The Gaza-based resistance group, in a statement released on Sunday, said the video showing Ben-Gvir confronting Salameh and threatening to have him executed would not weaken the jailed Hamas leader’s resolve or that of other Palestinian inmates.

The movement, however, warned that the video signals the possibility of new killings targeting Salameh and other Palestinian inmates held illegally inside Israeli detention centers, stressing it represents a policy that has turned prisons into sites of direct physical liquidation and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.

Hamas stated it had made, and continues to make, every possible attempt at all levels and through all available means to secure the release of Palestinian abductees held in Israeli prisons.

“We will remain committed to this principle until they gain their freedom,” the movement said.

Earlier on Sunday, Ben-Gvir posted footage on the social media platform X showing him inside the prison cell of Palestinian inmate Hassan Salameh, who has been held by Israel since 1996.

“I want to execute you,” he told Salameh in the video while flanked by armed and masked guards.

In a post accompanying the footage, Ben-Gvir said that if appointed war minister, he would work to ensure that abductees such as Salameh are executed and would advance the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank.

He has said that his far-right and anti-Arab Jewish Power party would demand the military affairs and justice portfolios as a condition for joining a future Israeli cabinet.

He has repeatedly advocated for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank under the so-called banner of “voluntary migration,” proposals emphatically rejected by Palestinians and Muslim states.

There are reportedly thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Geneva Convention.

Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions, lacking proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, around 60 percent of the Palestinian abductees detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, several of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.