National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened imprisoned Hamas terrorist Hassan Salameh in a video published late Sunday night, telling him, “I want to kill you. I want to put you to death.”
In the video, which Ben-Gvir said was recorded during a prison visit about two weeks earlier, he told Salameh, who orchestrated the deadly 1996 Line 18 suicide bus bombings, that he would go to hell in the afterlife. “But here, I’m responsible for hell,” the minister added.
Salameh is serving multiple life sentences for orchestrating three suicide bombings in 1996. The two Line 18 bus bombings, carried out on February 25 and March 3, killed 45 people. A third bombing at Ashkelon Junction on February 25 killed IDF soldier Hofit Aish.
סגירת מעגל ענקית עבורי!
כנער עמדתי ברחובות והפגנתי אחרי פיגועי התופת הנוראיים בקו 18 בירושלים. עשרות חפים מפשע נרצחו, ומשפחות שלמות נחרבו.
לפני כשבועיים הגעתי לכלא ופגשתי פנים אל פנים את הארכי מחבל חסאן סאלמה – מבכירי חמאס, חברו ושותפו של יחיא סינוואר ימ״ש, שנשלח בידי הצורר… pic.twitter.com/6HvGFKAroJ
— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) September 27, 2026
Salameh was arrested that year, convicted and sentenced to 46 consecutive life terms plus 30 years.
“You killed 48 people,” Ben-Gvir said. “Children, women, men and soldiers” – people he said he regarded as his own children.
“When I was a kid, I protested that they need to take care of people like you,” he said. “Today, I’m closing that circle.
Ben-Gvir pushes to worsen conditions for security prisoners
Ben-Gvir, whose ministry oversees the Israel Prison Service, has made worsening conditions for security prisoners a central part of his policy.
Since the October 7, 2023, attacks, the prison service has barred security prisoners from purchasing food at prison canteens or preparing it themselves, while Ben-Gvir has repeatedly said they should receive only the minimum conditions required by law.
In September 2025, the High Court ruled that the service was not ensuring prisoners received food sufficient to meet basic legal requirements and ordered it to take steps to do so and monitor implementation
In March 2026, the Knesset passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law by a vote of 62-48. The law makes execution by hanging the default sentence for West Bank residents who are neither Israeli citizens nor residents and are convicted by military courts of intentionally killing someone in a terrorist attack, unless special circumstances justify life imprisonment. In civilian courts, it allows either death or life imprisonment for anyone convicted of intentionally killing another person with the aim of denying Israel’s existence.
Because harsher criminal penalties cannot be imposed retroactively, the law cannot apply to Salameh’s 1996 offenses. Israel has not carried out an execution since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged in 1962.
“As National Security Minister, I led a policy that turned his life into hell,” Ben-Gvir wrote. “And with God’s help, as Defense Minister, I will act to ensure that murderer terrorists like him are put to death, and I will advance the emigration policy from Gaza and from Judea and Samaria.”
Hamas claims not to be intimidated by Ben-Gvir
Hamas said in response that neither it nor Palestinian prisoners were intimidated.
“Our heroic people will remain loyal to their national causes, foremost among them the issue of the prisoners,” Hamas stated. It said prisoners “will not be intimidated by the criminal minister Ben-Gvir or other extremist, terrorist leaders of the occupation,” and accused him of “further crimes” against prisoners.
The Gaza-based Waed Association for Prisoners and Released Persons said Ben-Gvir’s direct threat to kill Salameh represented an unprecedented level of hostility.
The US Treasury designated Waed as a specially designated global terrorist entity in January 2026, saying it was integrated into Hamas’s military wing and had provided material support to the organization.
Waed said the incident was not merely a media stunt, but reflected how the minister responsible for the prison system viewed inmates and what he considered permissible treatment.
Khaled Abu Toameh contributed to this report.
