ISRAELI occupation forces shot dead 21-year-old Qasim Shuqairat during a raid on his home in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel al-Mukaber on Wednesday, as a draft law permitting the execution of Palestinian prisoners advanced through the Knesset.
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society said Israeli forces opened fire on Shuqairat immediately upon storming his home, then removed him without disclosing his condition before his death from bullet wounds was confirmed.
‘Extrajudicial executions are among the most prominent systematic practices pursued by the occupation for years, a practice that has escalated noticeably, especially since the war on Gaza, including the targeting of civilians during raids and arrest operations in the West Bank,’ the two organisations said jointly.
The killing came as Palestinian prisoner institutions urged the international community to intervene before the Knesset ratified legislation authorising the execution of Palestinian prisoners. The national security committee passed the draft in its final reading shortly before midnight on Tuesday, clearing it for a full assembly vote within days.
The institutions described it as ‘the peak’ of a sustained escalation and accused Israel of exploiting global preoccupation with the regional war to push it through.
More than 100 prisoners have been killed since the war on Gaza began, 88 of them identified, with dozens more under enforced disappearance.
Israel’s prisons, the institutions said, have been converted into ‘integrated systems of systematic torture with the aim of killing more prisoners’.
In Gaza, the picture emerging from satellite imagery and security sources is of a systematic land seizure. At least 32 military sites now operate across the Strip, seven built since the October 2025 ceasefire, several equipped with electricity, telecommunications and engineering infrastructure indicating a permanent presence.
Israeli forces have extended their hold by demolishing buildings, displacing residents and erecting concrete barriers and earthworks across kilometres of territory.
Approximately 2.1 million Palestinians are now confined to less than half the land they previously inhabited, hundreds of thousands in tents or damaged structures as humanitarian aid dwindles.
At least 224 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed near or east of the Yellow Line since late February in a documented pattern of targeting civilians approaching military zones.
Medics reported treating large numbers wounded while fetching water or attempting to return home, as the advancing boundary has placed essential services inside areas Israeli forces treat as operational zones.
No international stabilisation force has been deployed.
