Overview
- IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth signed a military-order amendment Sunday that puts the Knesset’s March death-penalty law into effect in the West Bank.
- The order makes capital punishment the standard sentence for defendants convicted in military court of intentional killings defined as terror, with life imprisonment allowed only in exceptional cases.
- Procedural changes mean prosecutors no longer need to request a death sentence, a simple majority of judges can impose it, judge-rank limits are lifted, and pardons or sentence commutations are blocked along with inclusion in future prisoner swaps.
- The measure applies through military courts that try Palestinians in the West Bank and excludes Israeli residents, a scope rights groups say entrenches unequal justice and weakens fair-trial safeguards.
- Defense Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir praised the move as a security response after October 7, while UN officials and Israeli and Palestinian rights groups condemned it; Israel has rarely used executions, with the last in 1962.