Palestinian shops and institutions closed across the West Bank to protest a new Israeli law permitting executions for deadly attacks, highlighting deep anger and fears of unequal justice.
RAMALLAH: Palestinian shops and public institutions were closed across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in a general strike protesting a new Israeli law permitting the execution of Palestinians convicted of deadly terror attacks.
In the territory’s main cities of Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus, most stores had their shutters down at midday, according to AFP journalists.
The strike was called by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah party the previous day, with entire shopping centres and the main market in Ramallah, the seat of the PA, remaining shut.
About 150 people gathered in Ramallah to march against the law, which was championed by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and passed in parliament late Monday.
“It’s a crazy law to be passed, it’s insane,” said Mohammed Gussein, a 24-year-old student at Al-Quds University, which like all Palestinian universities was on strike.
“It’s completely out of touch with humanity, and completely racist,” he told AFP.
A 53-year-old psychologist from Ramallah named Riman, who declined to share her last name, said there was not a single person present who did not have a relative or neighbour in Israeli prison.
“But honestly, today we feel a lot of anger, because there is also a real weakness in solidarity with them,” she told AFP, adding that “the occupation (Israel) is betting on the weakness of the street.”
The new law makes the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians in the West Bank convicted by Israeli military courts of carrying out deadly attacks classified as terrorism.
As Palestinians in the territory are automatically tried in military courts, the measure effectively creates a separate and harsher legal track compared to Israeli civilian courts, where the law allows for either death or life imprisonment for those convicted of killing with intent to harm the state.
Critics argue the distinction underscores a system of unequal justice, even though the law does not provide for retroactive application.
On social media, Palestinians shared images of tyres being burnt in protest at the Qalandia checkpoint, one of the West Bank’s busiest entry points into Israel via Jerusalem.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, with violence there soaring since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
