Israel’s National Security Committee passes a bill mandating capital punishment for convicted terrorists, backed by PM Netanyahu and hostages coordinator Gal Hirsch. [Getty]
An Israeli parliamentary committee on Monday advanced a bill proposing the death penalty for “terrorists” in a move pushed for by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The National Security Committee approved the amendment to the penal code, which will now be passed onto the parliament for its first reading.
Israel’s hostages coordinator, Gal Hirsch, said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the measure.
Ben Gvir said he would stop his extremist party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) voting with the governing coalition if the law isn’t voted on by Sunday, threatening the government’s survival.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, the last person it executed was Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Scores of Palestinians have died in Israeli custody however as a result of neglect and abuse.
The Israeli news website YNet reported that the bill had originally been delayed because living Israeli captives were still being held by Hamas, amid fears that the execution of Palestinians could result in reprisals.
Following Hamas’s release of all the remaining living captives it held since October 2023 earlier this month, far-right Israeli politicians now feel free to advance the law.
A statement from the committee that includes the bill’s explanatory note says “its purpose is to cut off terrorism at its root and create a heavy deterrent.”
“It is proposed that a terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or hatred towards the public, and under circumstances where the act was committed with the intent to harm the State of Israel… will be sentenced to the death penalty — mandatory,” the statement said.
The rule, it said, was “not optional and without discretion”.
The text also proposes that the death penalty can be imposed by a majority of judges and the sentence cannot be commuted once the ruling is handed down, cutting off Palestinians’ right to appeal.
“Since the hostages are now in Israel, this opposition is no longer relevant,” Hirsch said, according to the statement.
“The prime minister supports this proposal. I consider this law to be an additional tool in our arsenal against terrorism and for the release of hostages,” he added.
The bill was introduced by a lawmaker from Ben Otzma Yehudit.
“There will be no room for discretion in this law,” Ben Gvir said on Monday, according to the statement.
“Any terrorist who is preparing to commit murder must know that there is only one punishment — the death penalty.”
Ben Gvir on Friday posted a video of himself standing over a row of Palestinian prisoners lying face down on the ground with their hands tied, in which he called for capital punishment.