Israel’s government moved a step closer Tuesday to approving the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners after the Knesset’s National Security Committee advanced the controversial bill in a second reading, brushing aside more than 2,000 objections submitted to the draft law, according to Israeli outlet Yedioth Ahronoth.
The bill is expected to go before the full Knesset next Monday, ahead of the Passover holiday. First approved by the committee in November, it would impose the death penalty on those described as “terrorists” who kill an Israeli citizen out of “racial hostility or a desire to harm the state.”
The bill would also allow military courts to impose a death sentence by a simple majority rather than a unanimous ruling, and would bar any pardon or commutation once a final sentence is issued.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called the committee’s second approval of the bill “a historic moment for justice for the State of Israel,” saying those who kill Jews “just because they are Jews” should face death.
Ben Gvir added, according to The Times of Israel, “No more revolving door of attacks, imprisonments and releases. This law restores deterrence, restores justice, and sends a clear and unambiguous message to our enemies: Jewish blood is not cheap. We will continue to lead an uncompromising policy against terror until victory.”
But the bill still faces resistance from some opposition lawmakers in the Knesset. Israeli economic newspaper Calcalist reported that Democratic Party Knesset member Gilad Kariv issued a sharply worded, urgent warning to Military Advocate General Itay Offir, saying the bill’s extreme wording conflicts with international law, particularly Article 75 of the Geneva Convention.
Kariv said that while the bill would require authorities to carry out executions within 90 days of sentencing, the Geneva Convention requires that such a sentence be carried out no sooner than six months later.
He added that the convention also requires the right to seek clemency, which the bill does not allow. It also states that depriving defendants tried before a military court of their basic due process rights amounts to a war crime.
Kariv stressed that, in its current form, the bill “would be the first law in Israel’s history whose provisions require carrying out an order defined under international law as a war crime.”
Hamas condemned the committee’s approval of the bill, calling it evidence of the occupation system’s “brutal descent” and a blatant violation of international laws governing prisoners of war, according to Alghad TV.
The movement said the legislation aims to turn prisons into public “execution grounds,” extending what it called policies of “slow killing” that the occupation has long practiced through torture and deliberate medical neglect against Palestinians.
Hamas warned that harming prisoners’ lives is a “red line” that would open the door to broad waves of anger and confrontation by all available means, holding the occupation fully responsible for the consequences of what it called the “legalization of killing.”
The movement also called on the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nations to escalate popular actions in support of prisoners, and urged the international community and rights organizations to move urgently to stop the law’s passage.
