The proposed law sets strict execution rules, including isolation for prisoners, meetings with lawyers only via video conferencing calls, and immunity for officers. It allows death sentences without a prosecutor’s request and mandates completion within 90 days under military court oversight
The Knesset’s proposed death penalty bill for terrorists would require executions to be carried out by hanging, to be performed by a designated prison officer.
The bill, initiated by far-right MK Limor Son Har-Melech of Otzma Yehudit, specifies that the officer would be appointed by the Israel Prison Service commissioner. During the execution, the prison warden, a judicial representative, an official auditor and a representative of the inmate’s family must be present. The law allows the sentence to proceed even if some of these parties are absent, to prevent delays.
Prison officers and the state would have full civil and criminal immunity for carrying out the sentence. Details of executions would be published on the prison service website, although the Freedom of Information Law would not apply to the specifics of the act. The identities of those carrying out the sentence would remain confidential.
The bill also prohibits any reduction, commutation, or cancellation of the sentence once finalized. Prisoners sentenced to death would be held in complete isolation, with visits limited to authorized personnel and legal consultations restricted to visual consultations via video conferencing calls only.
Under the proposal, a death sentence could be imposed even without a prosecutor’s request. Verdicts would require only a simple majority rather than unanimity. Trials would be conducted by military judges of lieutenant-colonel rank or higher, and executions would be carried out within 90 days of the final ruling, following a judge-signed execution order, under prison service supervision.
The Knesset approved the bill in its first reading in November, with 39 lawmakers voting in favor and 16 against.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated the vote by distributing sweets, wearing a golden noose-shaped pin alongside other members of his Otzma Yehudit party.
Ben-Gvir later said the noose symbolized “one of the options” for enforcing the death penalty, adding other options such as “the electric chair” and “lethal injection.”
During the discussion, Ben-Gvir referred to the Israeli Medical Association, which declared that doctors’ participation in executions is ethically unacceptable.
Legal advisers to the Knesset’s National Security Committee warned that the bill raises serious constitutional concerns, including making the death penalty mandatory and effectively stripping judges of sentencing discretion.
According to the advisers, the bill would apply only to Palestinians tried under military law in the West Bank, creating a separate legal regime and potentially conflicting with international treaties to which Israel is a signatory.
They said lawmakers must demonstrate that the death penalty would serve as a deterrent, that this goal cannot be achieved through less harmful means, and that its benefits outweigh the risk of irreversible harm.
The opinion cited cases in which people were convicted and later acquitted, warning of the “inherent difficulty” of the death penalty, which leaves no possibility of correction in the event of a wrongful conviction.
Advisers cautioned that key provisions are vaguely worded, including the clause defining an attack’s motive, and noted that the law would apply only when the victim is an Israeli citizen, excluding cases involving permanent residents or foreign nationals.
No existing Israeli law mandates the death penalty – including the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators Law – and applying such a measure in the West Bank would mark a significant departure from Israel’s longstanding legislative policy.
Several human rights organizations condemned the bill. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel wrote that instituting a death penalty “would give the state the authority to impose the harshest and most brutal form of punishment that exists – the intentional taking of a human life.”
The civil rights association called it another step toward the establishment of a “racist legal system designed to advance selective, oppressive and biased enforcement against Palestinian Arabs, through violent and undemocratic means.”