RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Eight Muslim-majority countries on Thursday lambasted Israel’s passage of a highly controversial death penalty law for West Bank Palestinians convicted of carrying out deadly terror attacks, saying the move further “entrenches a system of apartheid.”
The statement was released by foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
“This legislation constitutes a dangerous escalation, particularly given its discriminatory application against Palestinian prisoners,” the joint statement read. “Such measures risk further exacerbating tensions and undermining regional stability,”
The countries “warned against the increasingly discriminatory, escalating Israeli practices that entrench a system of apartheid and a rejectionist discourse that denies the inalienable rights and the very existence of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the statement added.
The apartheid charge is not regularly lodged against Israel by Muslim-majority countries, and especially not by the UAE, which has a closer working relationship with Jerusalem than each of the other countries that signed onto the statement.
The choice to use the term indicates the extent to which the law has infuriated Israel’s Muslim neighbors.
Under the law passed by the Knesset late on Monday, West Bank Palestinians convicted by military courts of carrying out deadly attacks classified as “acts of terrorism” will face the death penalty by default. While judges can opt for life imprisonment under vaguely defined “special circumstances,” the death penalty would otherwise be mandatory and be carried out within 90 days of sentencing.
The law has been criticized by the United Nations and European Union, while the United States came out in support of “Israel’s sovereign right to determine its own laws.”
Almost all of the countries that signed the statement enforce the death penalty at home, including Saudi Arabia, which alone executed 356 people in 2025.
Palestinians demonstrate against a new Knesset law imposing the death penalty on West Bank Palestinians convicted of deadly terrorist acts, in Nablus, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
The law effectively enshrines capital punishment for Palestinians only, as it explicitly excludes Israeli citizens or residents, and only Palestinians are tried in military courts. Israelis are tried in civilian courts.
Though a separate provision allows courts to impose the death penalty on anyone, including Israeli citizens, it applies only to those who “intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel” — a definition designed to exclude Jewish terrorists.
While the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has been carried out only once — the 1962 execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Until now, Israeli courts could impose capital punishment only under extremely narrow circumstances and only with a unanimous decision from a panel of judges, a threshold that has never been met in terrorism cases.
Adolf Eichmann standing in his glass cage, flanked by guards, in the Jerusalem courtroom during his trial in 1961 for war crimes committed during World War II. (AP Photo/File)
Supporters of the law argue that the measure will strengthen deterrence against terrorism and reduce the incentive for terrorist organizations to abduct Israelis.
But senior security officials have long disputed that claim, arguing there is no evidence that capital punishment deters terrorism and warning that it could instead fuel retaliation and escalate violence. Representatives of the IDF, Shin Bet intelligence agency and government ministries voiced such opposition throughout months of Knesset National Security Committee deliberations on the legislation.
Following the bill’s passage, several opposition parties, including Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Arab-majority Hadash–Ta’al and the left-wing Democrats party, along with several human rights organizations, announced they would petition the High Court of Justice to nullify the law.
Fifty-four countries around the world permit the death penalty, including a handful of democracies such as the United States and Japan, according to Amnesty International. The group says that the global trend on the death penalty is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it for all crimes.
