Israel’s parliament has passed a law approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted on terror charges for deadly attacks, a measure that has been harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane.
Sixty-two lawmakers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voted in favour and 48 against the bill, championed by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Ben Gvir in the run-up to the vote had worn a lapel pin in the shape of a noose, symbolising his support for the legislation.
“We made history!!! We promised. We delivered,” he posted on X after the vote.
“From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,” he told lawmakers.
The law makes the death penalty — by hanging — the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges — language that legal experts say effectively confines those who can be sentenced to death to Palestinian citizens of Israel and excludes Jewish citizens.
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”.
Criminal courts try Israeli nationals, including Palestinian citizens and residents of east Jerusalem.
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 bill says that the sentence may be reduced to life imprisonment under “special circumstances”.
‘Discriminatory by design’
Minutes after the bill passed, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel said it had already petitioned Israel’s highest court to challenge the law.
The bill appears to conflict with Israel’s Basic Laws, which prohibit arbitrary discrimination. The Association of Civil Rights called the legislation “discriminatory by design” and said the parliament had enacted it “without legal authority” over West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens.
“In military courts, which have jurisdiction over West Bank Palestinians, it establishes a near-mandatory death sentence,” the rights group said.
In civilian courts, the law’s stipulation that defendants must have acted “with the aim of negating the existence” of Israel “structurally excludes Jewish perpetrators”, the group added.
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said that under international law, Israel’s parliament should not be legislating in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory.
During the debate in parliament, opposition lawmaker and former deputy Mossad director Ram Ben Barak expressed outrage at the legislation.
“Do you understand what it means that there is one law for Arabs in Judea and Samaria, and a different law for the general public for which the State of Israel is responsible?” he asked fellow parliamentarians, using the using the Biblical term for the West Bank.
“It says that Hamas has defeated us. It has defeated us because we have lost all our values.”
International condemnation
The foreign ministers of Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy released a statement Sunday urging Israel to abandon plans to pass the law, calling it “de facto discriminatory,” and saying the death penalty was unethical and had no “deterring effect.”
The Council of Europe said the adoption of the law “respresents a serious regression.”
The Palestinian Authority condemned the law’s adoption, saying that “Israel has no sovereignty over Palestinian land”.
“This law once again reveals the nature of the Israeli colonial system, which seeks to legitimise extrajudicial killing under legislative cover,” it added.
Experts say the legislation has two key elements that will effectively limit the death penalty to Palestinians.
First, the bill makes the death penalty a default punishment for nationalistic killings in military courts, which try only West Bank Palestinians and not Israeli citizens. It says that only in special circumstances can military judges change the sentence to life imprisonment.
It gives Israeli civilian courts a greater degree of leniency in sentencing, with judges having the option to choose between the death penalty and life imprisonment.
The second element is how the bill defines the offense punishable by death: killing that rejects the existence of the state of Israel.
“It will apply in Israeli courts, but only to terrorist activities that are motivated by the wish to undermine the existence of Israel. That means Jews will not be indicted under this law,” Cohen said.
Though Israel technically has the death penalty on the books as a possible punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime and certain terror offences, the country hasn’t put anyone to death since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962.