For courts in the West Bank: Israeli politicians push for death penalty for terrorists

For courts in the West Bank
Israeli politicians push for death penalty for terrorists

November 20, 2023, 5:04 p.m

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The death penalty can only be imposed in Israel against Nazi criminals or for treason during wartime. A Knesset committee is now discussing a bill that would authorize military courts in the West Bank to punish terrorists with death.

Around six weeks after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel, Israeli politicians want to make it easier to impose the death penalty for terrorists. The parliament’s internal security committee discussed a corresponding law from the right-wing extremist ruling party Otzma Jehudit (Jewish Force). According to a draft of the law from March, “whoever intentionally or out of indifference causes the death of an Israeli citizen, if the act is motivated by racism or out of hostility against a certain population group” will be punished with death – with the aim of “the “To harm the State of Israel or the rebirth of the Jewish people in their homeland”.

In the occupied West Bank, military courts should be able to hand out death sentences with a simple majority. In March, a majority of the MPs present had already voted for the draft law. Three more readings of Parliament are needed before the law comes into force. Similar attempts to impose the death penalty for terrorists have failed in the past.

Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. Israeli law continued to allow the death penalty to be imposed in certain cases, such as against Nazi criminals or in cases of treason in times of war. However, the execution of the German Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962 was the last time that a death penalty pronounced by a regular court in Israel was carried out.

Criticism from relatives of the hostages

The right-wing extremist police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote on Platform child, between Jews and Arabs.” They would have slaughtered everyone. “There is only one sentence for these damn Nazis. And that is death.”

In the massacre by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, around 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel. Around 240 hostages were also kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. Israel says it captured hundreds of terrorists. The current discussion about the death penalty law has sparked massive criticism from the relatives of the hostages. They fear that those abducted will be at additional risk, as Israeli media reported.