A member of Israel's cabinet has declared his backing for killing Palestinian prisoners, rather than bringing them to trial, 972mag.com reported on July 29.
The Huffington Post said on July 29 that Israel announced it would release 104 Palestinian prisoners, as part of the US-brokered plan to renew peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.
But Israel's minister of Industry, Trade and Labor and Jewish Home Party leader Naftali Bennett proposed during a cabinet meeting on July 28 a different way to deal with prisoners.
“If you catch terrorists, you have to simply kill them,” Bennett allegedly said, according to a report in the Hebrew-language print edition of Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israeli National Security Adviser Ya’akov Amidror allegedly responded by saying that such a practice was illegal. Bennett then reportedly declared: “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there’s no problem with that.”
A former Israeli Defence Force officer, the right-wing Bennett briefly joined protesters against the decision to release prisoners before attending the cabinet meeting, Huffington Post said. The Jewish Press quoted Bennett as saying: “Terrorists should be killed, not released.”