The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has passed a bill that would impose the death penalty on terrorists whose attacks resulted in the deaths of people.
This is reported by the Israeli media Haaretz.
The bill stipulates that the death penalty will be imposed on a terrorist who kills a person “with the intent to deny the existence of the State of Israel”. Thus, the wording of the document creates a distinction that defines it almost exclusively for Palestinian terror, and for Jewish nationalist terror (in particular, the growing terror by Jewish settlers in the West Bank against Palestinians) makes its application almost impossible.
The bill was supported by 62 out of 120 lawmakers (all right-wing and far-right coalition members and several opposition members), 48 voted against, one abstained, and nine did not vote. The law now applies to any territory controlled by Israel, including the West Bank and 53% of the Gaza Strip.
The court will be able to sentence convicts to life imprisonment instead of the death penalty if it finds “special grounds” for doing so. The court can also impose the death penalty even if the prosecution did not request it. In addition, the death penalty will not require unanimous consent from the judges.
The law will not apply to Hamas terrorists who participated in the attack on October 7, 2023. A separate bill proposes to create a special tribunal for them.
Justice Department spokeswoman Lilah Wagner warned during a hearing on the House National Security Committee that imposing the death penalty in the West Bank through civilian law is “very problematic”. Control there is exercised either by the Palestinian National Authority or the Israeli military, and Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law.
During the discussions, representatives of the Israel Defense Forces warned that the law contradicted international treaties to which Israel is a signatory. The Foreign Ministry also stated that the amendments did not fully resolve the political and legal difficulties that the law raises in the international arena. The National Security Council also expressed its disagreement with the law.
The wording of the law was also softened under pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take into account provisions that were considered unconstitutional or contrary to international law.
Among other things, a clause that stipulated that West Bank residents would be tried only by military courts was repealed. Judges were given the option to impose life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. And language that stipulated that the law would apply to anyone who harmed an Israeli citizen was also removed.
- Israel has had the death penalty before, but it has only been used twice in the countryʼs history. In 1948, Israeli army officer Meir Tuviansky was falsely accused of espionage, found guilty of treason, and shot, but was officially rehabilitated a year later after a special investigation. In 1962, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Ramla prison, having been kidnapped by Israeli intelligence in Argentina.
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