Report: Netanyahu blocking use of death penalty for Oct. 7th terrorists

When the prime minister barred public hearings on the bill, the attorney-general decided not to enter discussions about it at all.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is effectively nixing the passage of a law that could apply the death penalty to the elite forces of Hamas who led the October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre, Maariv reported on Sunday.

The Hebrew-language daily said that Netanyahu is prohibiting public hearings on the bill, which is currently in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for refinement, out of concern for the 20-22 live hostages whom Hamas is still holding captive.

The terror organization is also holding dozens of bodies that its men took into Gaza on October 7th.

Confidential meetings are still being held in the Committee so that when the political will returns, the bill could quickly be moved to the Knesset for a vote.

However, according to Committee and Justice Ministry sources cited by the paper, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara is refusing to give any legal input since the ban, which is needed to enable it to move forward.

Committee chair MK Simcha Rothman and Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky of the opposition introduced the bill in October to define the mass slaughter amid brutal atrocities that Hamas terrorists committed as “genocide.”

The explanatory section says in part that a “unique legal approach” is necessary due to “the complexity of the events, their unprecedented scale, and the unique nature of the crimes committed…. The regular judicial system is not equipped to handle such a scale of severe crimes carried out simultaneously by hundreds of perpetrators.”

Those charged, chief among them Hamas’ Nukhba forces, would be designated as “special unlawful combatants” even if they were only indirectly involved in the murders by planning or inciting them.

Unique regulations will “minimize interim and preliminary procedures” and “facilitate the hearing of evidence in multi-defendant proceedings,” in part by establishing certain rules of evidence that are not used in regular cases of homicide or rape due to the unique nature of the crimes, the bill added.

A special court consisting of senior justices and legal experts in the field, even from abroad, would oversee the trials and have the authority to impose the death penalty if proven that the defendants participated in the slayings. It would not be necessary to prove the details of the atrocities they committed.

According to the report, Southern District Attorney Erez Padan, who is responsible for building the cases against the hundreds of Nukhba terrorists whom the IDF has captured over the course of the war, is against using a catchall “genocide” charge with special rules of evidence, preferring to prosecute them as murderers, rapists and torturers under standard civilian laws.

Not a single terrorist captured since October 7, 2023, has faced a court of law for his crimes, although last month, Israeli prosecutors announced that they were finally prepared to file charges against 22 who committed atrocities in Kibbutz Nir Oz.