Palestinian and Israeli activists gather at a protest in December against the then-draft law that would mandate the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killing Israeli citizens, near Beit Jala in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [File: Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and The Associated PressPublished On 30 Mar 202630 Mar 2026
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has passed a controversial bill that will instruct military courts to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis in acts of “terror”, but will not impose the same penalty on Jewish Israelis convicted of kiling Palestinians.
The law, which enters into effect within 30 days, was approved on Monday in the 120-seat Knesset by 62 lawmakers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with 48 voting against it and one abstention.
Its passage marks a major victory for Israel’s far right, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir having pushed for its enactment as one of the main conditions of his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party’s coalition agreement with Netanyahu.
The Palestinian Authority called the bill “a war crime against the Palestinian people”, saying that it breached the Fourth Geneva Convention, “particularly the protections it guarantees for individuals and the safeguards for fair trials”.
The new law, introduced as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues, instructs military courts trying only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens, to impose the draconian sentence for lethal attacks on Israelis.
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, told the Associated Press that “Jews will not be indicted under this law”.
Under international law, he noted, Israel’s parliament should not be legislating in the West Bank, which is not sovereign Israeli territory in spite of the best efforts of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition to annex the territory to Israel.
The lawyer for the Knesset’s National Security Committee also raised several concerns during earlier deliberations, noting that it did not allow clemency, contradicting international conventions.
Minutes after the law was passed, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel said it had filed a petition with Israel’s Supreme Court to challenge it, describing it as “discriminatory by design” and “enacted without legal authority” over West Bank Palestinians.
On its website, the association notes, among other criticisms, that the “threshold for imposing the death penalty would be lowered”, with courts able to impose sentences of death by hanging by simple majority rather than a unanimous decision by judges.
Though Israel technically has the death penalty on the books as a possible punishment for acts of genocide, espionage during wartime, and for certain “terror” offences, the country hasn’t put anyone to death since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was executed in 1962.
Appearing in the Knesset before voting began, Ben-Gvir wore a pin featuring a small metal noose on his lapel. “From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,” he said.
The bill, which comes into effect as the occupied West Bank experiences a surge in Israeli military and settler violence, was condemned by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom on Sunday.
Amnesty International said in February that it would make the death penalty “another discriminatory tool in Israel’s system of apartheid”.
