Knesset backs ‘death penalty for terrorists’ bill in preliminary vote

National security minister pushes proposal that would require death penalty for terrorists who murder Israelis, despite prime minister and other Israeli officials pushing to delay the legislation, warning it could endanger hostages in Gaza.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli lawmakers on Sunday morning voted in favor of legislation that would require the death penalty for terrorists convicted of murder, despite attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu block the bill.

The Knesset National Security Committee held a hearing on the bill, drafted by members of the Otzma Yehudit party – a partner in the Netanyahu government – following multiple delays.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a senior member of the government, rejected overtures by Netanyahu’s allies to postpone the hearing again.

The bill is the latest in a series of legislative efforts to change the laws concerning sentencing convicts to death and carrying out executions once imposed.

While Israeli law does technically permit the death penalty in some instances, it has only been implemented twice since the state was established in 1948.

That year, an IDF officer, later found to have been falsely accused, was executed for treason.

Fourteen years later, Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann was executed for war crimes stemming from his role in the Holocaust.

Under the current law, murder itself is not grounds for the death penalty.

Even when the death penalty can be imposed, it requires a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel and approval by the Supreme Court and the president.

In dozens of instances, convicted murderers were sentenced to death but never executed, with the sentences either commuted on appeal or by presidential order.

For decades, lawmakers have sought to make it easier for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for terrorists convicted of murder while at the same time removing limits on the implementation of the death penalty.

Previous bills in this vein were promoted by the Israel Beytenu party, led by Avigdor Liberman.

The current proposal, however, would not only remove barriers to the imposition of the death penalty in certain cases, it would make capital punishment mandatory in all cases of nationalistically motivated murder.

“A terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or hostility toward a group, and under circumstances intended to harm the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish people in its land, shall be sentenced to death—mandatory, not optional, and not subject to judicial discretion,” the proposal for the bill reads.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief envoy for hostages, Gal Hirsch, have both lobbied in the past to delay hearings on the bill, arguing that the law could prompt Hamas to execute the remaining surviving hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

Ben-Gvir said during Sunday’s hearing that Netanyahu had urged him to cancel the hearing.

Committee chairman MK Zvika Foghel, a member of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, rejected Hirsch’s warnings.

“I have heard the situational assessments and Mr. Hirsch’s opinions, and I do not accept them. We cannot continue with this current concept. The death penalty for terrorists is not revenge, it is justice,” Foghel said at the opening of the hearing.

MK Gilad Kariv of the left-wing The Democrats blasted Otzma Yehudit for pushing the bill.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Kariv shouted before being removed from the hearing. “There are hostages. This is just an election campaign stunt.”

After the hearing, the committee voted to give preliminary backing to the bill, sending it to the full Knesset for its next reading.