Israel's parliament has passed a bill that mandates execution for those convicted of deadly terror attacks.
The bill, which was passed 62-48 on Monday night, was championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who praised it as a historic moment for Israel.
The Palestinian Authority “strongly condemned” the bill, which it called a “blatant violation of international law”.
After the bill was passed, Mr Ben-Gvir said in a post on X: “From now on, every mother in Judea and Samaria will know that if her son goes out to murder, his sentence is the gallows.” He was referring to the occupied West Bank with a biblical term used in Israel.
“And I say to the people of the European Union who have applied pressure and are threatening the state of Israel: we are not afraid, we do not surrender. In our country, with our sovereignty, we will protect our citizens.”
The success of one of Mr Ben-Gvir's key policy promises is yet another step by Israel to the far right, a direction that is concerning many of its traditional allies, as the country faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and state and settler violence against Palestinians soars.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said it is petitioning the Supreme Court over the law, describing it as “unconstitutional, discriminatory by design and – for West Bank Palestinians – enacted without legal authority”.
Dr Suhad Bishara, a director at the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights (Adalah), said after the bill was passed that the law “exclusively targets Palestinians”.
European countries earlier expressed “deep concern” about the death penalty bill, which was widely regarded as discriminating against Palestinians.
“We are particularly worried about the de facto discriminatory character of the bill,” said the governments of Germany, France, Italy and the UK. “The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles.”
The bill has two provisions for the death penalty. One applies in the occupied West Bank, where military courts would be able to impose it for “terrorist acts”.
Only Palestinians are tried in military courts and have a conviction rate of 96 per cent “based largely on 'confessions' extracted under duress and torture during interrogations”, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
The law would apply to residents of the West Bank “except Israeli residents”, a copy of the law seen by The National said.
Under the second provision, Palestinian citizens of Israel and those living in occupied East Jerusalem would face the death penalty for “intentional killing … with the aim of negating the existence of the state of Israel”.
“If a Palestinian was killed, whether in the West Bank or Israel from an ideological point of view, they're not considered impacting the state of Israel,” Ms Bishara told The National, before the bill was passed.
In both cases, the definition of what constitutes a terrorist act is vague, a UN Panel of Experts has said.
Israel holds 9,500 Palestinians under “administrative detention” – that is, without charge. Since the Gaza war broke out on October 7, 2023, at least 80 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons where they are exposed to poor treatment, medical negligence and violence, B'Tselem said.
Introduced in November, the bill faced major opposition domestically and internationally, resulting in changes to its language. An earlier version stipulated that the death penalty would be mandatory, but after some opposition the language was revised to allow life imprisonment instead in some cases.
A death sentence would also require due process for a fair trial – conditions that are not met in the way Israel's court system operates against Palestinian detainees. In many cases, coercive interrogation or torture is used to obtain information from suspects, say local and international rights groups.
Palestinians are also denied access to so-called secret evidence against them, thereby preventing them from being able to fully defend themselves. In January, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the bill contravenes international law on several levels.
“Such proposals are inconsistent with Israel’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Mr Turk said. “The proposal also raises other human rights concerns, including on the basis that it is discriminatory given it will exclusively apply to Palestinians.”
Although it never officially abolished the death penalty, the last execution Israel carried out took place in 1962.
