Overview
- The Knesset approved legislation that makes death by hanging the default punishment for deadly attacks carried out with the intent to negate Israel’s existence.
- The statute routes non-Israeli suspects from the West Bank and Gaza to military courts and keeps Israeli defendants in civilian courts, creating an application that will fall almost entirely on Palestinians.
- The law narrows due-process safeguards by limiting appeals and clemency, restricting access to lawyers and family, and requiring executions to occur within roughly 90 days.
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir praised the measure, while rights groups, European governments, and the UN human rights chief condemned it, with the UN warning that applying it in occupied territory would constitute a war crime.
- Israel has rarely used capital punishment since 1954 and has executed only Adolf Eichmann, and former Shin Bet leaders caution that executions could fuel retaliatory or suicide attacks rather than deter them.