JERUSALEM - An Israeli minister Sunday condemned a decision by the Palestinian Authority to re-implement the death penalty, calling for an immediate stay of execution for alleged collaborators.
"Israel must immediately demand of the PA that it stop the planned execution of suspected collaborators," wrote Nathan Sharansky, minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs, in an appeal to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"It is unacceptable that the PA demands the release of terrorists from our jails... while at the very same time the PA is about to commit state executions of people accused of helping Israel thwart terror," the statement added.
Such executions contradict the gestures demanded of Israel and trample on human rights and any hope for a better future in the Middle East, it added.
On Thursday, officials said the PA was poised to resume executions of prisoners on death row, with 15 due to be carried out by the end of the month.
The last time the Palestinians carried out a death sentence was in August 2002, when Bashir Atari, 21, was executed by firing squad for killing two women.
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, nine death sentences have been carried out since the formation of the PA in 1994 out of a total of 70 imposed by the courts.
Since the intifada broke out in September 2000, dozens of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israeli intelligence have been publicly assassinated by militants without trial.
03/06/2005 11:10 GMT