Palestinians slam Israeli FM for call to execute prisoners

Ramallah: A senior Palestinian official condemned Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for calls to execute Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.

Issa Qaraqe, chief of the Palestinian corporation for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, told Xinhua that the statements of Lieberman "represent racism, incites for murder and express hatred and hostility."

He added that these statements "give a license for killing the prisoners and using all means against humanity and haphazard practices. This man represents the Israeli government."

The senior Palestinian official also said that Lieberman's statements "violate all international laws and conventions, mainly 4th Geneva convention, which call on the occupying authorities (Israel) to protect prisoners in its jails."

Israeli radio earlier quoted Lieberman as saying that over the past three decades, Israel freed more than 3,000 prisoners from its jails, including prisoners who committed crimes of murder. "

He added that the release of Palestinian prisoners involved in first-degree murder "weaken the Israeli power of retaliation because it gives hope to those murderers to be released in any prisoners' swap deal."

"The only way is to execute those prisoners," he said, according to the radio.There are 6,500 Palestinian prisoners inside the Israeli jails, according to an official statistic made by the end of last year.