MK Rothman ‘No public defenders for terrorists’

Israel Prison Commissioner reported that there were 118 ‘unlawful combatants’ from Gaza captured on or after October 7th, but the precise number hasn’t been confirmed.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, proposed a bill on Monday that would deny Hamas Nukhba terrorists the privilege of having a public defender plead their cases.

Since public defense was intended to protect the “weak and vulnerable in society” who might otherwise not have access to legal services, Rothman argued that it would be a perversion of the system and there would be “no justification” for Hamas terrorists, who harmed the weak and the vulnerable on October 7th, to benefit from free legal representation.

Rothman said, “The Public Defender’s Office is a matter of which Israel should be proud: It provides aid to the weak people, who need legal protection.”

He added, “There is no justification whatsoever for the State of Israel to fund, and for the Public Defender’s office to be tarnished with, representing these despicable Nukhba terrorist enemies. There is no justification for their victims to pay for their legal defense.”

In late October, Israel Prison Commissioner Katy Perry reported that there were 118 “unlawful combatants” from Gaza captured on or after October 7th, but the precise number hasn’t been confirmed.

In late November, a controversy erupted in the Knesset over a proposal that would allow the death penalty for convicted terrorists.

National Security Minister Ben Gvir argued in favor of the proposal, saying, “The law on the death penalty for terrorists is not an issue of Right and Left anymore. [It] is a moral and essential law for the State of Israel.”

He added, “We all saw what happened here on October 7. When the Nazis entered they did not distinguish between Left and Right, an old man and a child, a Jew or an Arab. They slaughtered everything in their path, human and living. Those cursed Nazis have only one judgment, and that is death.”

However, some families of hostages were opposed to the proposal or even discussing it at a time when they were trying to secure the release of their loved ones through exchange of Palestinian prisoners.

“Such a bill is completely against the release of the abductees in a safe and sound manner,” said Yarden Gonen, whose sister Romi is in Hamas’ hands. “We are dealing with monsters, not with people who have logic or emotion, they proved it in October 7. Why do you give them such a tool to hang our loved ones in Gaza and make a show of it? We are dealing with the death penalty for terrorists now, when we still have living people there? How dare you endanger their lives in this way?”