The amendment to the penal code, demanded by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and approved by the National Security Committee, was approved by 39 votes to 16. It must pass a second and third reading before becoming law.
A bill proposing the death penalty for “terrorists” passed a first reading in Israel’s parliament on Monday — a measure that could apply to Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.
The amendment to the penal code, demanded by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and approved by the National Security Committee, was approved by 39 votes to 16. It must pass a second and third reading before becoming law.
The vote went ahead amid a tense truce with Hamas in the Gaza war that had raged since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country — the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann was the last person to be executed in 1962.
Ben Gvir had threatened to withdraw his Jewish Power party from the governing coalition if the law were not put to a vote.
A statement from the security committee that includes the bill’s explanatory note said: “Its purpose is to cut off terrorism at its root and create a heavy deterrent.”
“It is proposed that a terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or hatred towards the public, and under circumstances where the act was committed with the intent to harm the State of Israel… will be sentenced to the death penalty — mandatory,” the statement said.
A Gaza truce came into effect last month and the government is still discussing with the United States and others the conditions for extending the measure.
Hamas said the proposed law “embodies the ugly fascist face of the rogue Zionist occupation and represents a blatant violation of international law”.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry called it a “new form of escalating Israeli extremism and criminality against the Palestinian people”.
