Israel's Death Penalty Law Triggers General Strike in West Bank

(MENAFN) A sweeping general strike brought daily life across the West Bank to a near-standstill on Wednesday, ignited by fierce public opposition to a newly passed Israeli law permitting the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, a correspondent reported.

Shops, public and private institutions, banks, universities, and schools shuttered their doors, while hospitals and bakeries remained the sole exceptions, continuing operations amid the widespread shutdown. Streets in Ramallah — the seat of the Palestinian Authority — sat largely deserted, with businesses locked and traffic thinned to almost nothing.

The stoppage came in direct response to a call issued by the Fatah movement, which a day earlier announced a comprehensive shutdown to oppose the legislation. Fatah framed the strike as part of a broader campaign to overturn the law, denouncing it as a dangerous escalation and a deliberate violation targeting Palestinians. The group further urged mass public mobilization and pressed for intensified regional and international action to force a repeal.

Israel’s Knesset passed the contentious bill on Monday. The law empowers courts to impose capital punishment on Palestinians convicted of intentionally killing Israelis — without requiring a prosecutor’s request and without the need for a unanimous judicial ruling. The legislation extends equally to military courts adjudicating cases involving Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The stakes are immediate: according to the Commission of Detainees Affairs, 117 Palestinians currently imprisoned in Israeli jails could fall directly within the law’s reach.

Condemnation has not been limited to Palestinian voices. Inside Israel itself, roughly 1,200 prominent figures — among them Nobel laureates, former military commanders, and retired Supreme Court justices — publicly denounced the measure in February, branding it a “moral stain.”

The broader detention picture remains deeply alarming. More than 9,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons — including 350 children and 73 women — according to Palestinian officials, who allege that detainees are subjected to systematic abuse, starvation, and deliberate medical neglect.

Since October 2023, Israel has progressively tightened its grip on Palestinian detainees in parallel with its war in Gaza — a conflict that Palestinian sources say has now claimed more than 72,000 lives and left 172,000 wounded, the overwhelming majority of them women and children.

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