The Israeli parliament is in advanced stages of passing a bill that would reinstate the death penalty for “terrorists” convicted of murdering Israeli citizens.

Analysts say the proposed legislation is biased: the law is explicitly drafted to target Palestinians in Israel as well as throughout the occupied territories, while shielding ‘Jewish’ Israeli perpetrators from the death penalty.

Championed by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir among others, the proposed law mandates capital punishment for acts committed with the goal of “harming the state of Israel and the national revival of the Jewish people in its land”.

The law is carefully worded to carve out a religious and ethnic exemption. 

It ensures that Jewish settlers or soldiers who kill Palestinians – often under the guise of “self-defence” in the occupied territories – face no consequences.

As Jewish terrorists cannot be accused of harming the “national revival of the Jewish people”, the death penalty will apparently come into play only when Palestinian citizens of Israel go on trial for alleged acts of terrorism.

“The wording seems to exclude Jewish Israeli perpetrators, particularly settlers,” Gokhan Batu, a Levant studies analyst at the Ankara-based Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, tells TRT World.

“I’m not convinced this approach will strengthen Israel’s security or deter future attackers… If anything, it might fuel further tensions,” he says.

Israel abolished capital punishment for ordinary murder in 1954, retaining it only for exceptional offences, such as Holocaust- and genocide-related crimes, treason, and certain violations under emergency regulations inherited from the British Mandate. 

There has been only one judicial execution in Israel’s history, that of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962, after he was captured in Argentina. 

Batu says the national “restraint” has been deliberate. Israel’s security establishment believes that executions would offer no real deterrent effect and might instead intensify cycles of violence, he says. 

He refers to the 2016 case of Sergeant Elor Azaria. In Hebron, Azaria shot an already-neutralised Palestinian, 21-year-old Abdel Fattah al Sharif, in the head while he lay motionless on the ground.

The execution-style killing was captured on video. 

“Despite clear evidence, he was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder and sentenced to just 18 months in prison, of which he served only nine months before receiving early release,” Batu says.

“His case revealed a profound moral and disciplinary crisis within the Israeli army and society,” says Batu, who was living in Israel at the time.

Under the proposed law, Azaria’s act would never trigger the death penalty. The intent clause – harming the national revival of the Jewish people – would not apply in this case. Sharif, the victim, was Palestinian.  

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Terrorism versus resistance

Nasir Qadri, an Istanbul-based legal scholar and international-law practitioner, calls the wording of the proposed law a legal sleight of hand.

“The proposed bill’s formulation of terrorism… constructs a legally protected class of perpetrators engaged in an enterprise prohibited under international humanitarian law,” he tells TRT World.

“By designating occupation forces and settlers as the subjects of protection, rather than civilians, the statute redefines ‘terrorism’ to criminalise resistance and to immunise colonial domination,” he says.

Qadri refers to settler rampages after October 7, 2023, to point out the uneven application of existing laws in Israel. 

“During attacks in and around towns such as Huwara and Qusra, settler mobs burned homes and killed Palestinians amid army presence. Prosecutions did not proceed under terrorism provisions,” he says.

Similarly, armed settlers killed Palestinians in May 2024, while the area was declared a ‘closed zone’. Charges, when brought at all, were framed as public-order or property offences, not terrorism, he adds.