Israel Approves Death Penalty Law for Palestinians Convicted of Terror Attacks

The Israeli parliament voted 62 to 48 on Monday to make execution by hanging the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of deadly terror attacks in military courts, handing the country's far right a long-sought victory that drew immediate condemnation from human rights organizations and European governments.

The law mandates that Palestinians convicted in Israeli military courts of carrying out attacks deemed "acts of terrorism" be hanged within 90 days of sentencing, with a possible postponement of up to 180 days. There is no right to clemency. Where judges determine circumstances warrant it, life imprisonment remains an alternative, a provision introduced in the revised version of the bill; the original measure had mandated death for non-Israeli citizens convicted in West Bank military courts without that option. In Israel's civilian courts, the law separately mandates either life imprisonment or death for anyone convicted of "deliberately causing the death of a person with the intent of ending Israel's existence."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voted in favor. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the bill's driving force, posted on X after the vote: "We made history!!! We promised. We delivered." Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party had long argued that capital punishment would deter Palestinians from carrying out deadly attacks and from attempting kidnappings aimed at affecting prisoner-swap deals.

In theory, Jewish Israelis could also face execution under the new law, but legal experts say the odds are vanishingly small because the death penalty applies only where the attacker's intention was to "negate the existence of the State of Israel."

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel moved immediately to challenge the measure, petitioning the Supreme Court and calling the law "unconstitutional, discriminatory by design and, for West Bank Palestinians, enacted without legal authority." The court will now decide whether to hear the case. The passage marks a sharp departure from Israel's own execution history: the country has put only two people to death since its founding, one of them the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Rabbi Benny Lau, a public intellectual from Jerusalem, described the legislation plainly: "There's nothing here but vengeance, hitched onto a narrative of Jewish pride and violence. Somehow, we have to put this demon away."

Internationally, the vote drew swift rebuke. On the eve of the session, the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expressed "deep concern," warning the bill risked "undermining Israel's commitments with regard to democratic principles." A group of United Nations experts cautioned that vague definitions of "terrorist" in the bill could result in the death penalty being applied to "conduct that is not genuinely terrorist" in nature.

Hamas said the bill "threatens the lives" of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and called on the international community to "ensure the protection of our prisoners." The Palestinian Authority condemned the law as one that "seeks to legitimise extrajudicial killing under legislative cover." Amnesty International noted there "is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment."

The vote came as Israel faces mounting international scrutiny over increasing settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, a backdrop that deepened the diplomatic pressure already bearing on Netanyahu's coalition.