Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered the country’s Prison Service Commissioner to re-open an underground prison wing to hold incarcerated members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, Al Jazeera reports.

The Times of Israel, citing Hebrew media, reported that the wing was part of the Nitzan prison in central Israel and is reported to have been unused for years.

Ben-Gvir also wrote to Israel’s police commissioner describing the conditions in the underground wing as “not among the best”, but that the conditions “comply with the provisions of the law and the relevant regulations, and it has housed prisoners in the past”.

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