Ben-Gvir Posts Video of Gallows Complex, Says Viewing Booths Let Victims' Families Watch Executions

Itamar Ben-Gvir walked onto an active construction site this week, pointed at the foundations, and told his followers this is where Palestinian prisoners will die.

Israel's national security minister posted the video on Instagram and Telegram, where a bulldozer and cordoned-off construction work are visible near what multiple outlets describe as a prison in central Israel. "In this place, the terrorists will be executed," Ben-Gvir said, according to Middle East Eye. He said the facility will include "viewing chambers where crime victims will be able to come and watch" the hangings.

"I promised to worsen the conditions of terrorists in prisons — we kept it," Ben-Gvir said in the clip, according to The Guardian. "I promised to pass the Death Penalty for Terrorists law — we did. And now the death row and hanging facility are also starting to take shape."

The law behind the gallows

The Knesset passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists law in March by a vote of 62 to 48, according to The Guardian. It requires military courts to impose death as the default sentence unless a court finds special circumstances justifying life imprisonment instead.

The law applies specifically to people convicted in Israel's military court system, which operates in the occupied West Bank and tries Palestinians, not Israeli citizens. The Independent reports the law does cover Israelis too, but only for murders committed with intent to end Israel's existence, a bar Jewish extremists convicted of attacks on Palestinians have not been charged under. Critics, including Amnesty International's Erika Guevara-Rosas, call this a law that "in effect" targets one ethnic group while shielding another.

A law that structurally applies capital punishment to one population and not another, even when the underlying conduct is comparable, deserves scrutiny regardless of what side of the conflict you're on. Supporters of the law would argue terrorism aimed at destroying the state is categorically different from individual violent crime, and that deterring attacks that kill Israeli civilians justifies harsher sentencing.

According to Middle East Eye, the Israel Prison Service had already begun preparing sites and training personnel before the law even passed, with three IPS volunteers reportedly slated to carry out hangings within 90 days of sentencing.

Even a sympathetic outlet says he's gone too far

The Jerusalem Post, a center-right Israeli paper, ran an op-ed accusing Ben-Gvir of turning a legitimate policy debate into a spectacle. "Reasonable people can debate whether Israel should have the death penalty for terrorists," the Post wrote. "But reasonable people do not glorify executions, take public joy in them, or circulate videos of gallows under construction."

The Post op-ed points out this isn't a one-off. Ben-Gvir wore a gallows lapel pin during the legislative push, popped champagne when the bill passed, and got a birthday cake this past May decorated with a frosted noose. Days before the gallows video, he told former hostage Rom Braslavski, who said he wanted to execute Palestinian prisoners with his own hands, that watching him do it would be "one of my greatest dreams," according to both the Post and The Independent.

The Post's real target isn't Ben-Gvir alone. It's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the paper says has let his national security minister become "a public relations train wreck" for nearly four years without consequence.

International fallout

German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil called Ben-Gvir's recent comments about Gaza "dehumanising" and urged the EU to consider sanctions, according to Middle East Eye. France and Ireland have already sanctioned Ben-Gvir this year, and Belgium has said it plans to follow with its own measures alongside recognizing a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, according to Breitbart's reporting. The U.S. State Department has publicly criticized allied nations for sanctioning Israeli ministers and called for those sanctions to be rolled back.

Human rights groups went further than diplomatic language. Asim Qureshi of CAGE International told The Independent the viewing booths represent "another example of the depravity" that has taken hold in Israeli politics. B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, has separately alleged that Israel Prison Service facilities under Ben-Gvir's oversight amount to "a network of torture camps," an allegation Israeli authorities have not addressed in these reports and which remains unproven in any independent investigation.

No execution has taken place under the new law yet. The facility, per all accounts, is still under construction with no announced completion date. Netanyahu has so far declined to publicly rebuke Ben-Gvir over any of this, raising questions about whether Israel's coalition math makes such a rebuke politically possible.