Israeli party ponders capital punishment bill to prevent another prisoner swap

The recent prisoner swap that saw Israel release several hundred Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit brought joy to many Israelis, but consternation to many others.

How could prisoners be released who had “blood on their hands” they demanded, referring to the fact that a large proportion of the Palestinians freed were serving life sentences (some of them multiple life sentences) for their role in terror attacks that killed Israeli civilians.

Since the exchange, several efforts have been mounted to try to ensure that such releases never take place again. One effort involves an attempt to draft a set of rules by which any future Israeli government must operate in the event an Israeli citizen is held hostage.

Another effort has been taken by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to try to ensure that no Israeli soldier is ever taken prisoner. The new directive is to the effect that Israeli soldiers must fire upon any enemy forces attempting to abduct a fellow Israeli soldier, even if such fire jeopardizes the life of the soldier being taken captive.

This week, Shas, one of the parties in the governing coalition announced it would put forward another formula for ensuring no prisoners with blood on their hands are ever released – a bill to be introduced in the Knesset that would impose a death penalty on terrorists who seek to destroy the state of Israel.

Not since 1962, when former Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann was executed for his role in the mass extermination of Jews in Europe, has capital punishment been carried out in Israel. Indeed the action is not one of the legal punishments set out in almost all criminal statutes administered by civil authorities.

Such a bill as Shas has championed has a few problems to overcome, not the least of which is the fact that most Palestinians in Israeli prisons have been convicted by military courts. While Israel’s civil justice system is internationally praised for its independence, impartiality and the quality of the judiciary, the same cannot be said of the country’s military courts (nor almost any country’s military courts).

Capital punishment, still permitted in certain military court cases, has only been carried out once, in 1948, in the early days of the state.

By its very nature, a military court operating in occupied territory and trying civilians from the occupied population is hardly independent or impartial. The officers of the court are also uniformed military officers in an armed force that largely views the prisoners as the enemy.

Until 2004, when legal minimums were introduced, many of those sitting in judgment even in trials of capital offences need not have had legal training.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Israeli studies have shown that in some recent years more than 99 % of the accused have been convicted.

The practice of military courts trying civilians (as opposed to trying its own soldiers accused of breaching military laws) is widely discredited in international legal circles, and neither Israeli society, nor the international community would tolerate a situation where such a court system meted out the death penalty.

This would mean that, if the Shas or a similar bill is passed into law, a large number of the hundreds of serious Palestinian cases would have to be tried in Israeli civilian courts where processes would take far longer than the often brief, summary-style justice of the military courts. It might also result in a far lower rate of conviction.

That alone would probably guarantee that a bill introducing new terms for capital punishment will not be passed.

It is noteworthy that it is Shas that is bringing a capital-punishment proposal forward. Created in the 1980s, Shas is an ultra-Orthodox religious party that represents mostly Sephardi Jews, those descended from Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa, as opposed to Northern Europe.

Capital punishment is widely condemned in Jewish religious circles and Shas is breaking from that religious position, not an insignificant matter.

It’s also worth noting what happened in that early Israeli military case of capital punishment.

An Israeli officer named Meir Tobianski was charged with treason for allegedly having passed information to Jordanian forces that allowed their artillery to hit sensitive targets during Israel’s War of Independence. Capt.Tobianski was tried by a makeshift military court in June 1948, found guilty based on evidence provided by the fledgling state’s head of military intelligence, and executed by firing squad.

A year later, an investigation determined that Capt. Tobianski had not been guilty. He was posthumously acquitted of all charges.

Source: The Toronto Globe and Mail, October 28, 2011

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Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

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