Israeli Parliament Votes 93-0 to Extend Death Penalty Law to Gaza Palestinians

Israel's parliament voted 93-0 to approve legislation establishing special tribunals able to impose the death penalty on Gazan Palestinians for alleged participation in crimes against humanity. The Knesset approved the measure out of 120 parliamentarians as part of a legislative package that mandates capital punishment for Palestinians but not for Israelis.

The tribunals will operate using a legal framework last applied in the 1962 execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. The legislation extends earlier measures passed on March 30 that require all Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis in nationalist acts or terror attacks to be hanged.

It applies to ethnic Palestinians who hold Israeli passports and residents of the West Bank but does not apply to ethnic Jews in those areas. At least 1,000 Gazans are currently held in administrative detention in Israel as unlawful combatants, with additional Palestinians imprisoned in the West Bank.

Those affected will be tried in military courts where the conviction rate exceeds 90 per cent, according to Israeli human rights groups. The new tribunals will handle cases related to the deaths of about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, on October 7 2023.

Hearings will be televised, as occurred during the Eichmann trial.

Israel has not carried out a death sentence following court proceedings since 1962, though it has conducted hundreds of extrajudicial targeted killings. The only prisoner executed after a court process was Israeli soldier Meir Tobianski, who was shot in 1948 and later exonerated.

A Palestinian citizen of Israel and human rights lawyer stated that the shift in support for the death penalty followed the October 7 2023 attacks. Israel has reported that its forces killed at least 70,000 people in its military campaign in Gaza after those attacks.

Human rights groups and the United Nations have stated that the majority of those killed, at least 47,000, were women and children.

The countries warned that the measure could undermine Israel's democratic principles. No sanctions have been threatened against Israel. The bill is being advanced by the deputy speaker of parliament, a member of the Jewish Power Party. That party opposes any accommodation with Palestinians and supports Israeli rule from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

The number of Israeli settlers on the West Bank has grown from about 110,000 in 1993 to approximately 530,000 today, with an additional 200,000 in East Jerusalem. All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.