‘I want you dead’ – Ben-Gvir threatens jailed Hamas mastermind with execution

Israeli National Security Minister visits jailed Hamas terrorist who masterminded suicide bombing attacks in the 1990s, threatens to have him executed.

By World Israel News

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has released footage of himself confronting imprisoned Hamas terrorist Hassan Salameh, telling the architect of a deadly series of 1996 suicide bombings that he wants him executed and declaring that he has personally made his prison conditions “hell.”

The video, published Sunday night, was recorded during a prison visit roughly two weeks earlier. It shows the minister standing directly in front of Salameh as armed, masked prison guards surround the Hamas terrorist.

“These are the conditions I gave you. But it’s not the end,” Ben-Gvir tells him. “I want to kill you. I want to put you to death.”

Salameh was one of the senior Hamas terrorists behind a wave of suicide attacks that struck Israel in early 1996.

He was convicted of 46 murders for planning three bombings, including two attacks on Jerusalem’s No. 18 bus route and an attack near Ashkelon.

The two Jerusalem attacks, carried out one week apart on February 25 and March 3, killed 45 people.

Another bombing at Ashkelon Junction on February 25 killed IDF soldier Hofit Aish.

An Israeli military court sentenced Salameh in 1997 to 46 consecutive life terms plus 20 years.

Ben-Gvir said the prison confrontation represented a personal “closing of the circle,” recalling that he had taken to the streets as a teenager to protest after the Jerusalem bombings.

“When I was a kid, I protested that they need to take care of people like you,” he told Salameh. “Today, I’m closing that circle.”

In his accompanying social media post, Ben-Gvir said he had demonstrated following the “horrific” No. 18 bus bombings, which he recalled as attacks in which dozens of innocent people were murdered and entire families devastated.

He said that decades later, as the minister responsible for the Israel Prison Service, he was in a position to dictate the conditions under which Salameh is imprisoned.

“As National Security Minister, I led a policy that turned his life into hell,” Ben-Gvir wrote.

During his prison visit, Ben-Gvir told Salameh that punishment awaited him both in prison and after death.

“You will have hell,” he said, adding: “But here, I’m responsible for hell.”

The minister has made the treatment of jailed terrorists one of his signature issues since assuming control of the ministry overseeing the prison service. He has pushed to eliminate privileges previously available to security inmates and has repeatedly argued that they should receive no more than the minimum conditions required by Israeli law.

His campaign achieved one of its principal legislative objectives in March, when the Knesset passed a law establishing the death penalty in specified terrorism cases.

The legislation passed its final readings by a vote of 62-48.

Under the law, a Palestinian resident of Judea and Samaria who is neither an Israeli citizen nor a resident and who intentionally kills someone in a terrorist attack can receive a mandatory death sentence in a military court, unless judges find special circumstances justifying life imprisonment.

The legislation cannot be applied retroactively to Salameh for crimes committed three decades ago.

Israel has not executed anyone since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged in 1962.