In a statement on Tuesday, Al-Azhar expressed deep dismay over the collapse of the international legal order and its failure to confront the Zionist occupation’s passage of a bill imposing the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
The institution affirmed that this act once again reveals “the murderous character of an occupation that is not satisfied with its ongoing crimes, but now seeks to codify its criminality, granting its brutality a false and transparently hollow legal cover.”
Al-Azhar emphasized its categorical rejection of all measures and decisions issued by the occupation to legitimize the killing of Palestinians, stressing that the bill is nothing more than a desperate attempt to dress murder in legal language—a veneer that does nothing to alter its true nature.
The statement further noted that the move reflects the barbarity and moral depravity of this entity, as well as its contempt for every standard of human decency.
Al-Azhar called upon the international community and human rights organizations to uphold their moral and legal responsibilities in the face of actions that blatantly defy international law and established norms.
It urged these bodies to act swiftly to halt such measures, hold perpetrators accountable, and spare innocent lives from this grave injustice.
Additionally, Egypt’s Ministry of Religious Endowments slammed the legislation as a dangerous escalation and a blatant violation of humanitarian values and the international conventions that safeguard prisoners' rights and prohibit cruel treatment.
In a statement, the ministry affirms that this legislation represents a moral and political regression, exposing an aggressive disposition that disregards the sanctity of human life.
It also defies the most fundamental principles of justice enshrined in both divine law and international conventions governing the treatment of prisoners, the statement added.
The ministry reaffirms that genuine security and stability in the region can only be achieved through a just and comprehensive solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The law, passed on Monday, would make the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank found guilty of intentionally carrying out deadly attacks deemed "acts of terrorism" by an Israeli military court.
Palestinians in the West Bank are automatically tried in Israeli military courts. Criminal courts also try Palestinian citizens and residents of occupied East Jerusalem.
Under the bill, in Israeli criminal courts, anyone "who intentionally causes the death of a person with the aim of harming an Israeli citizen or resident out of an intention to put an end to the existence of the State of Israel shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment".
The bill sets the execution method as hanging, adding that it should be carried out within 90 days of the sentencing, with a possible postponement of up to 180 days.
The move has sparked widespread outcry, with rights advocates describing the legislation as a war crime and a shift toward legalizing the execution of detainees.
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