Ben-Gvir threatens to kill imprisoned senior Hamas figure ahead of Israel vote

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has released footage of himself threatening to execute a Palestinian prisoner, as he campaigns for greater power over Israel's military and pushes for the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The video, published on Sunday less than a month before Israel's 27 October election, shows Ben-Gvir confronting Hassan Salameh, a senior Hamas member imprisoned by Israel since 1996 over his alleged involvement in deadly bomb attacks in Jerusalem.

"These are the conditions I gave you. But it's not the end. I want to kill you. I want to put you to death," Ben-Gvir tells Salameh while flanked by armed, masked guards.

Telling Salameh he would go to hell in the afterlife, Ben-Gvir added: "But here I'm responsible for hell."

Ben-Gvir said the encounter represented "closure", recalling that as a teenager he had demonstrated following the 1996 Jerusalem bus bombings for which Salameh was convicted, before becoming national security minister decades later.

In a post accompanying the footage, Ben-Gvir made clear that the video was also tied to his political ambitions ahead of next month's election.

He said that if appointed defence minister in Israel's next government, he would work to execute Palestinian prisoners such as Salameh and advance the "voluntary migration" of Palestinians from both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) said in a statement on Monday that the Salameh video was part of a wider pattern of using Palestinian detainees for "political and electoral one-upmanship", accusing Israeli politicians of competing to appear the most "hardline" and violent towards prisoners.

The group warned against dismissing such videos as mere election propaganda, arguing that repeated threats against Palestinian prisoners and their leaders posed a genuine danger to their lives.

Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party has said it will demand control of the defence and justice ministries as part of negotiations to join the next government.

His proposed "migration" policy envisages removing much of Gaza's Palestinian population and encouraging Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to leave, proposals Palestinians have rejected as forced displacement and critics have described as ethnic cleansing.

Earlier this month, Ben-Gvir unveiled a more detailed Gaza plan, dubbed "Disengagement 710", which included establishing a government ministry dedicated to facilitating Palestinian emigration.

The confrontation with Salameh is also the latest in a series of videos in which Ben-Gvir has used Palestinian prisoners and detainees to promote his policies.

In August 2025, he entered a prison to confront Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned senior Fatah leader and former Palestinian legislator who remains one of the most prominent Palestinian political prisoners.

Footage showed a visibly gaunt Barghouti listening as Ben-Gvir told him that Israel would "wipe out" anyone who harmed Israelis.

More recently, Ben-Gvir filmed himself confronting Palestinian women held at Damon prison, mocking complaints about access to water and medical supplies and boasting about deteriorating conditions for Palestinian prisoners under his tenure.

He has repeatedly presented the worsening of prison conditions as one of his principal achievements as national security minister.

The videos have also brought Ben-Gvir into conflict with Israel's own election authorities.

In June, the Central Elections Committee ordered him to remove footage showing him taunting activists detained after attempting to reach Gaza by flotilla.

Supreme Court Deputy President Noam Sohlberg ruled that the footage constituted election propaganda produced through the improper use of public resources.

The committee had previously found that videos of Ben-Gvir touring a prison and police boat similarly constituted illicit use of the security forces for campaigning.

The latest video comes after Ben-Gvir secured one of his longstanding political objectives in March, when the Knesset approved legislation allowing the death penalty in specified cases involving Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. Nobody has yet been executed under the law.

Ben-Gvir's increasingly explicit election platform goes beyond prisons, as the Jewish Power leader has long advocated Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank and Palestinian displacement, and has made obtaining the defence portfolio a central demand ahead of the election.