Israel Approves Death Penalty Law – but Only for Palestinians

Israel’s parliament has passed a law making the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of killing Israelis. 

The legislation, devised by far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, will see prisoners sentenced within 90 days of arrest and executed within a further 90 days. 

Alternatives to death will only be allowed under “special circumstances,” with the bill closing off avenues for appeal. 

Only Palestinians are tried in military courts. Rights group B’Tselem says there is a near 100% conviction rate and confessions are sometimes extracted through torture. 

“Israel is already killing Palestinians on a regular basis – in detention facilities, and in the field, where lethal force is widely used by Israeli settlers and by the military with close to zero accountability,” Yuli Novak, the executive director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, told the Guardian. ‘‘This law is another tool in this toolbox.’’

Those sentenced to death will be held in separate facilities and denied visits. Legal consultations will happen over video link. 

MPs allied to Ben-Gvir wore noose-shaped pins on their lapels as they gathered in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to vote through the legislation last night.

Ben-Gvir, who is said to keep a portrait of Jewish gunman Baruch Goldstein who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in his living room, has widely reprogrammed Israeli prisons to starve and torture Palestinian prisoners. 

“From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the state of Israel will take their life,” Ben-Gvir told the Knesset. 

He was filmed brandishing a bottle of champagne in Israeli parliament, in celebration of the bill passing. 

The UN, the EU and Amnesty International have condemned the legislation, warning that it violates Palestinians’ right to life and defines terrorism in a dangerously vague manner. 

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, said: “Such laws and measures will not break the will of the Palestinian people or undermine their steadfastness. 

“Nor will they deter them from continuing their legitimate struggle for freedom, independence, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Sophia Sheera is a journalist in Novara Media’s social media team.