parliament Israel He submitted a draft law providing for the death penalty Convicted Palestinians To kill Israeli citizens.
In the vote held on Monday evening, it was… The first of the four is required For the proposal to become law, the project was approved by a majority of 39 votes to 16, out of a total of 120 parliamentarians.
The far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, called on all political parties to support the measure, saying that it aims to create a form of deterrence against “Arab terrorism.”
“This is how we fight terrorism; this is how we create deterrence,” Ben Gvir said in a statement after the initial vote.
Parties boycott voting
The project will now be referred to a parliamentary committee for further discussion before the second and third votes. However, there is no guarantee it will become law, as several major parties boycotted the vote on Monday.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israeli media that he would not vote in favor of the proposal.
The Palestine Liberation Organization condemned the vote. Palestinian National Council President Rawhi Fattouh described the project as a “political, legal and humanitarian crime.” Hamas also criticized the decision.
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. Since then, the only case of execution after a civil trial was that of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Ben Gvir says imposing the death penalty would serve as a deterrent to anyone considering carrying out attacks similar to those that occurred on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and led to the kidnapping of 251 hostages who were taken to Gaza, according to Israeli data.
The Israeli retaliatory attack on Gaza killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, most of whom were also civilians, according to local health authorities.
Last month, a fragile ceasefire was agreed, which included the release of the last 20 hostages still alive, as well as the return of the bodies of the dead hostages, in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Prisoner release agreement
Since October 2023, Israel has released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for the release of hostages held by Palestinian terrorists.
Most of the hostages have already been released, leaving only the bodies of three Israelis and one foreigner.
Zvika Vogel, a member of Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party and chair of the parliamentary National Security Committee, where the project will be discussed, said that adopting the death penalty would put an end to prisoner exchange agreements.
Among the Palestinians released in previous exchanges, some had been convicted of serious crimes, including murder, while others had not been convicted at all.
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar – named as one of the masterminds of the October 2023 attack – was released in 2011 as part of an exchange of more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier held in Gaza.
During the war in Gaza, far-right Israeli politicians, such as Ben Gvir, opposed the release of Palestinians involved in Israeli killings.
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