Jerusalem, (EFE).- The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) plenum approved on Monday a legal reform establishing the death penalty by hanging for those convicted of terrorist murder.
Human rights organizations denounced the measure, arguing it will be applied in practice only to Palestinians and not to Jewish Israeli citizens.
The text, approved with 62 votes in favor and 48 against, mandates (with undefined exceptions) for Israeli military courts which try Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank who are found guilty of the crime.
However, it gives ordinary courts, which try Israeli citizens, the option of applying life imprisonment instead and stipulates more conditions for imposing the death penalty.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the vote in the Knesset and voted in favor of the reform, promoted by the party of Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
«The law is populist, immoral, and unequal,» condemned Matti Sarfatti, a member of the opposition party ‘Yesh Atid’ (There is a Future), during Monday’s debate, labeling it «clearly unconstitutional.»
Outside the chamber, parliamentarians followed the session remotely, in accordance with the state of emergency declared due to the war, which limits indoor gatherings.
During the session, Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman, from the Arab party Hadash, pointed out that «in other countries, the death penalty is a universal punishment applicable to everyone.»
«In this case, the identities of the victim and the murderer determine the sentence (…): murder or self-defense. And will it even be applied to the settler murderers?» she questioned.
Until now, Israel only permitted the death penalty in extraordinary cases, mainly for war crimes or genocide, and has only applied it once with Adolf Eichmann in 1962, one of the main perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Palestinians: military courts
In the West Bank, Palestinians accused of terrorist murder are tried by Israeli military courts, as the Israeli Army controls this occupied territory.
The new law obligates these courts to impose the death penalty in such cases, except for «special circumstances» (which are not detailed) that could justify life imprisonment instead.
This near-mandatory imposition has been criticized by NGOs, as well as foreign ministers of France, Germany, United Kingdom, the European Council and the UN, who denounce that these types of courts lack sufficient guarantees, and that imposing the penalty by default violates the right to life and denies judges the ability to evaluate individual circumstances.
Furthermore, the reform allows the military court to impose the death penalty even without a request from the prosecution,which often acts as a counterweight to the government in Israel.
Additionally, sentences can now be decided by a simple majority of the court, rather than the unanimous decision usually required in military justice, and judges no longer need to hold a high military rank.
In practice, Israeli authorities use the classification of ‘terrorist’ to refer to Palestinians who attack their soldiers (even for actions like throwing stones) or settlers illegally residing in the West Bank, in addition to those who perpetrate actual attacks on Israeli territory.
Israelis: ordinary courts
Israeli citizens, both within Israeli territory and in the West Bank (illegal settlers), are tried by ordinary criminal courts.
In this case, the reform adds a new condition for sentencing to death, in addition to it being a terrorist murder: if it is proven that the act was carried out with the purpose of «harming the State of Israel.»
«This is something extraordinary in Israeli law,» explains lawyer Miriam Azem, coordinator of the Palestinian legal center Adalah, to EFE, explaining that this makes it extremely difficult to apply to an Israeli Jew.
In addition, the ordinary criminal court will have the option to choose between the death penalty or life imprisonment.
Timelines, execution, and death row
Although a retroactive application was considered during the drafting of the law, it will ultimately not be retroactive.
According to the approved reform, the death sentence will be carried out by hanging, within 90 days of the final judgment, and the identity of the executioners will be concealed.
The condemned person will be kept separate from the rest of the prisoners, and the prison director, a judge, a cleric, a doctor, and a representative of the victims’ families must be present at the execution.
Sentenced individuals can appeal, but the military courts that try Palestinians in the West Bank have a conviction rate exceeding 99%, according to Army data collected by the newspaper Haaretz.
Palestinians convicted by military justice will also not be able to receive a commutation of the sentence or a pardon from the Israeli Army commander, and the legal reform only leaves a window open to postpone the execution if the prime minister requests it for «special reasons.»
A hundred deaths in prisons
The law will not apply to those detained in connection with the October 7, 2023, massacre.
However, the Knesset is expected to approve another project, known as the ‘Law on the prosecution of participants in the October 7 events,’ by which a special military court may also sentence them to the death penalty.
The approved legal reform represents the culmination of a policy driven by National Security Minister Ben Gvir, denounced by NGOs and international organizations for the mass detention of Palestinians without guarantees and abuses in Israeli prisons.
Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, nearly 100 Palestinian detainees have died behind bars, according to data obtained by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), a record figure that has not been updated for months.
In many cases, they apparently died as a consequence of torture, medical negligence, and food deprivation, in what various NGOs described as a system that has turned detention centers and prisons into «torture camps.» EFE
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