Israel bill proposing death penalty for those it considers terrorists passes first reading

Israel’s parliament has approved the first reading of a bill proposing the death penalty for those it considers terrorists acting against the state, a requirement that means it will likely be used only against Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.

The bill, which has been condemned by the Palestinian Authority and human rights groups, was supported in the 120-seat Knesset by 39 votes to 16.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose Jewish Power party won the vote, celebrated Monday night by handing out candy.

“When the law is finally passed, terrorists will only be sent to hell,” he said.

The bill must pass two more readings before becoming law.

In the same session, the Knesset also approved the first reading of another controversial bill that allows the Israeli government to shut down a foreign media outlet without judicial approval. That vote was 50 in favor and 41 against.

The legislation aims to turn a temporary order that allowed the closure of Qatari-owned Al Jazeera in May 2024 into permanent law. The government’s legal advisers have objected.

While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has only been used twice since 1948, when the state was created. The last time was when Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged in 1962, after a public trial.

The Jewish Power party demanded an amendment to the penal code and it was approved by the Knesset’s National Security Committee, which said in a statement that its purpose was to “nip terrorism in the bud and create a powerful deterrent.”

The statement read: “It is proposed that a terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or hatred towards the public, and in circumstances where the act was committed with the intention of harming the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish nation in its homeland, be sentenced to the death penalty – mandatory.”

The harming Israel clause makes it likely that Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks, but not Israeli Jews, will be sentenced to death.

The Foreign Ministry of the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, called the proposed law a “new form of escalation of Israeli extremism and criminality against the Palestinian people.”

Ben-Gvir had long pushed for the death penalty bill to be put to a vote in the Knesset, but Israeli political and security leaders previously opposed that move, arguing it could complicate efforts to free live Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

This is no longer a concern since his return following the start of the ceasefire in Gaza last month.

Ben-Gvir was one of the few Israeli ministers to vote against the Gaza ceasefire agreement that aimed to end the war. This involved sending 20 live hostages home in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including some 250 serving life sentences, many of them convicted of killing Israelis.

“A dead terrorist is not released alive,” said Limor Son Har-Melech, a Jewish Power member and sponsor of the bill.

In 2003, during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, Har-Melech, then pregnant, and her husband, living in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, were attacked by Palestinian gunmen while they were in their car. Her husband died and she was injured, prompting her to give birth via an emergency cesarean section.

She told the Knesset that one of her husband’s killers was freed in an earlier exchange deal to bring home an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza. It said he later commanded a deadly attack on another Israeli and participated in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, before being killed during the Gaza war.

In response to the bill, Palestinian human rights organizations said its “most alarming aspect” would be that, if it became law, it could be used to apply retroactively.

They suggested their intention was to “carry out collective death sentences that could affect hundreds of Palestinian detainees from the elite Al-Qassam Brigades forces who were arrested on or after October 7,” referring to Hamas’s military wing.

Israel’s Justice Minister has already said he is seeking Knesset legislation to establish a special criminal court to try Gazans accused of involvement in the October 7, 2023 attacks, in a process that could result in death sentences being imposed on those convicted.

Some 1,200 people were killed two years ago in the cross-border attack on southern Israel by several thousand armed Hamas fighters. In the war it sparked, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said more than 69,000 people died in Gaza.

Pressure from Israeli lawmakers to formalize what is known as the “Al Jazeera Law” also follows the ceasefire in Gaza.

During the war, a ban imposed by Israel’s Ministry of Communications forced Al Jazeera to close its office in a hotel in occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli military then ordered the closure of the network’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, claiming it was a threat to national security.

Israel accused Al Jazeera of anti-Israel bias and supporting Hamas in its reporting. Al Jazeera has repeatedly denied such allegations and condemned Israel’s actions.

The new international media legislation would give the government permanent powers to stop foreign broadcasters in Israel, even outside of times of war or national emergency, and eliminate the need for judicial oversight.

Last year, in filing a petition with the High Court of Justice against the temporary order allowing sanctions on foreign broadcasters, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) argued that “the law violates freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom of the press, and prevents citizens and residents from receiving a variety of information that does not fit the Israeli narrative or is not broadcast on Israeli media channels.”

The two controversial bills are expected to be ready for a second and third parliamentary reading.