LEGISLATION IS CURRENTLY making its way through the Israeli parliament that would introduce the death penalty for terrorism offences, but only those committed by Palestinians. 

With broad support among members of the Knesset, it is likely to pass and would be the latest addition to a long list of apartheid laws introduced by the Israeli parliament since the war on the Gaza Strip began in October 2023. 

The bill would amend existing legislation by introducing a mandatory death penalty for people convicted of intentional killing by Israeli military courts, which have jurisdiction exclusively over Palestinians in the occupied territories. Jewish settlers, on the other hand, are not subject to military law.

It also stipulates that such sentences cannot be commuted or amended, and must be carried out within 90 days of a conviction. 

The bill, which has the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also seeks to amend penal laws that apply within the state of Israel, empowering courts to apply the death sentence to people convicted of intentionally causing the death of an Israeli citizen or resident through an act of terrorism.

In both cases, the sentence is to be death by hanging. 

Civil rights groups in Israel and Palestine have condemned the bill, which is currently in the final legislative stage and is being examined by the Knesset’s national security committee.

The civil rights groups say the law will deny Palestinians even more of their rights under Israeli, international humanitarian and human rights law. 

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has said the bill undermines Israel’s stated commitments in international forums like the United Nations “and the foundational principles of equality before the law and due process”.

In an assessment of the bill, Adalah noted that although several provisions of Israeli law allow for the imposition of the death penalty, both in Israel and in the occupied West Bank, “Israel has become a de facto abolitionist state with respect to formal capital punishment, having not carried out the death penalty since 1962″. 

The human rights organisation — which assisted Irish flotilla activists when they were detained in Israel last year — said the new law would establish “a system that is racially discriminatory by design” by applying the death penalty exclusively to Palestinian defendants. 

Additionally, Adalah said the proposed law “eliminates judicial discretion, and erodes fundamental fair-trial guarantees” because it makes the death sentence mandatory in relevant terrorism cases and the execution must be carried out within 90 days of a verdict, which can be reached by a simple majority on a panel of judges.

The parliamentarian who proposed the amendment to Israel’s penal law, Limor Son Har Melech of the Jewish Power party, has said the law would apply equally to Jews and Arabs in Israel. At the same time, though, she also insisted “there is no such thing as a Jewish terrorist”. 

But Adalah said that the discriminatory nature of the bill has been evident throughout the legislative process, “during which lawmakers have repeatedly stated that the law is intended to apply to Palestinians as punishment for the killing of Israelis”.

The organisation said the aim of the bill is “to impose the death penalty exclusively on Palestinians, threatening to create a regime of racialized capital punishment”.

The leader of the Jewish Power party, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, himself has been convicted of supporting a terrorist organisation, among other offences including incitement to racial hatred. 

Separately, there is another bill in the works that would convene a special military tribunal to prosecute the people who carried out the 7 October attacks launched against Israel from the Gaza Strip in 2023. The death penalty also features in that bill. 

Limor Son Har-Melech at a protest against the arrest of Israeli reservists accused of raping a Palestinian detainee in July 2024. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

B’Tselem, an Israeli-Palestinian human rights organisation, told The Journal that it is “fundamentally opposed to the death penalty and views it as a grave violation of the very idea of human rights”.

“This law, which was explicitly drafted to apply only to Palestinians, joins years of legislation and policy through which the Israeli regime treats Jews and Palestinians differently and imposes apartheid across the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea,” a B’Tselem spokesperson told The Journal.

“The Israeli government is already torturing and killing Palestinians held in its custody. 

“This law does not mark a shift in that regard.” 

B’Tselem has documented extensive human rights abuses in Israeli prisons and detention centres, concluding in a 2024 report that the carceral system for Palestinians is a network of “torture camps”. 

“More than 80 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody in the past two years alone,” the spokesperson said. 

“The death penalty is, in practice, yet another tool used by the Israeli regime to kill Palestinians.”

A spokesperson for Adalah told The Journal that if the bill becomes law, it would violate the human rights clause of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a trade deal the EU has maintained despite Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. 

The European Union has long opposed and criticised the use of capital punishment in other jurisdictions.

The European Commission and Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.