Region
PA, Hamas say Israel death penalty law ‘seeks to legitimise killing’
The Palestinian Authority condemned yesterday the adoption of a law by Israel’s parliament that would allow the execution of Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks, calling it a "dangerous escalation”.
In a post on X, the Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry said that "Israel has no sovereignty over Palestinian land”, adding that: "This law once again reveals the nature of the Israeli colonial system, which seeks to legitimise extrajudicial killing under legislative cover”.
The Hamas group said the Israeli parliament’s approval of the bill reflects what it described as Israel’s policy of "killing and terrorism”. The approval of the bill "reflects the bloody nature of the occupation and its policy based on killing and terrorism”, Hamas said in a statement.
Earlier, Israel’s parliament passed a law yesterday making the death penalty a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks, fulfilling a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies, Reuters reported.
The legislation has drawn international criticism of Israel, which is already under scrutiny for increasing violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The measure includes provisions requiring an execution by hanging within 90 days of sentencing, with some allowance for a delay but no right to clemency and the option of imposing a life imprisonment sentence instead of capital punishment.
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person ever executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Military courts in the West Bank can already impose a death sentence on Palestinian convicts but have never done so.
The measure was promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who has worn noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the legislation as a breach of international law and a doomed bid meant to intimidate Palestinians.
"Such laws and measures will not break the will of the Palestinian people or undermine their steadfastness,” Abbas’ office said in a statement. "Nor will they deter them from continuing their legitimate struggle for freedom, independence, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Israel’s leading rights groups decried the law as "an act of institutionalised discrimination and racist violence against Palestinians.” The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said it filed an appeal against the law with Israel’s Supreme Court.