Taghribnews (TNA) - Hamas condemns Israeli new death penalty bill

Palestinians resistance movement Hamas has expressed anger over the new death penalty bill by Tel Aviv regime authorizing execution of the Palestinian detainees who carry out anti-occupation operations.

The Palestinian resistance movement issued the reaction in a statement on Wednesday after Knesset (the Israeli regime's parliament) approved the draft -- which has been proposed by far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir -- in a preliminary reading.

The group denounced attempts at the legislation of the executions as the Israeli regime's bid to legalize its systematic killings of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Information Center news agency reported, citing a Hamas statement.

"Such racist and criminal move reflects the Israeli occupation government's fascist tendencies," the group said, according to the agency.

"It represents an extension of the summary executions [that are] carried out by the Israeli occupation army in cold blood under the nose of the whole world," it said, reminding that the international law criminalizes killing on discriminatory and racist bases.

Hamas vowed that such policies would not deter the Palestinian people from exercising their right to resistance against the occupying regime and its illegal settlers.

The Israeli regime's forces and settlers have escalated their deadly acts of aggression against the Palestinians since late December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu staged a comeback as the regime's prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and extremist parties.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli forces attacked the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp near the city of Jericho in the eastern part of the Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank, fatally wounding a man, whom the regime has accused of killing an Israeli-American motorist earlier.

Mahmoud Jamal Hassan Hamdan, 22, died from "serious wounds inflicted by bullets of the occupation" during the raid, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported, citing a statement by the Palestinian health ministry.

Hamdan's death took the number of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the beginning of the year to 67, including four who were killed by Israeli settlers' gunfire, 13 children, four elderly people, and one prisoner.

At least 21 of the fatalities were caused during two separate mass raids carried out by the Israeli troops on the cities of Nablus and Jenin, both in the northern part of the West Bank, earlier this year.