Overview
- The Knesset passed the measure on March 30 by a 62–48 vote, making hanging the default sentence for killings defined as terrorism aimed at negating Israel’s existence.
- The law chiefly operates in West Bank military courts that try Palestinians under a separate system with very high conviction rates.
- The statute limits appeals and clemency, restricts access to lawyers and family, and orders executions to occur within roughly 90 days.
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated the move as deterrence, while Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN rights chief condemned it and warned that applying it in occupied territory could constitute a war crime.
- Petitions have already reached Israel’s High Court, challenging a shift away from decades of restraint on capital punishment since its 1954 curtailment and the country’s lone execution of Adolf Eichmann.