Israel approved a bill on May 11 establishing a special tribunal that would have the authority to hand down death sentences to Palestinians convicted of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attack.
The measure passed 93-0 in the 120-seat Knesset (Israeli parliament). The remaining 27 lawmakers were absent or abstained.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin called the vote “one of the most important moments of the current Knesset,” after the motion passed,
“Out of the terrible massacre, we rose up to fulfill our moral obligation to bring the perpetrators to justice,” he added, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
The bill, which empowers a panel of judges to sentence those convicted to death by a majority vote, also stipulates that the trials must be livestreamed from a Jerusalem courtroom.
Yulia Malinovsky—a Knesset member for the Yisrael Beytenu party, which is in opposition to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who co-sponsored the legislation, referred to the proceedings as “the modern Eichmann trial” and said, “the entire world will witness” them.
She was referring to the 1962 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, which was broadcast live on television.
She said that the bill “enjoys the broadest consensus seen here in years,” according to the Times of Israel.
Eichmann, viewed by history as one of the main architects of the Holocaust, was executed by hanging after being captured by agents of the Mossad on the streets of Argentina in 1960.
That execution, 64 years ago, was the last time capital punishment was carried out in Israel, though it has technically remained a legal punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime, and certain terror offenses throughout.
Simcha Rothman, another of the bill’s sponsors who is part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, said the overwhelming support for the bill in the Knesset shows Israeli lawmakers can come together “around a common mission.”
Some rights groups, however, have criticized the measure, saying it makes the death penalty too easy to impose while also doing away with procedures safeguarding the right to a fair trial.
The bill provides for defendants to appeal their sentences, but those appeals must be heard by a separate, specialized appeals court rather than Israel’s regular appeals courts.
Opponents also say that livestreaming the proceedings before guilt is established risks turning the trials into a spectacle.
Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, described the bill as creating “show trials,” according to Qatari state-funded news outlet Al Jazeera.
The bill is separate from a law passed earlier this year that approved death by hanging for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, a measure that was condemned by many countries and rights groups as discriminatory.
Under the legislation passed on March 30 in the Israeli Parliament, an accused individual must be found to have intentionally caused death under the circumstances of terrorism with the aim of negating the existence of Israel.
The law makes the death penalty—via hanging—an option in Israeli courts, and will become the default in the occupied West Bank because of differing legal systems. A death sentence can still be revoked via a presidential pardon or appeal.
Once a death sentence is final, however, it needs to be carried out within 90 days via hanging.
That law, however, applies only to future cases and has no retroactive clause, meaning it cannot apply to the Oct. 7, 2023 suspects; hence, this new legislation.
The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis, saw 251 taken hostage, and sparked the war in Gaza.
Friends Read Free
Copy
Facebook
Tweet
