Israel | Justice Minister pushes for tribunal empowered to impose death sentence on Oct. 7 perpetrators

Bill to form special tribunal calls to try October 7 suspects under Israel’s genocide law, which can carry a death sentence, though decision ultimately in PM’s hands

Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced on Thursday that he is advancing legislation in the Knesset to establish a special criminal tribunal to try Gazans accused of carrying out massacres and atrocities on October 7, 2023, in a process that could result in death sentences being handed down to those convicted.

The tribunal will be able to try the dozens of Gazans captured in Israel between October 7 and October 14, 2023, suspected of being Hamas operatives for crimes listed under Israel’s 1950 Law for the Prevention of Genocide, which is based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which can carry a death sentence.

In a joint statement to the press made together with Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman, and committee member MK Yulia Malinovsky of the Yisrael Beytenu opposition party, Levin stated that advancement of the bill was now possible following the return of all the living hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and held in Gaza since then.

The Constitution Committee has already begun deliberations on the joint legislation authored by Rothman and Malinovsky behind closed doors, and Levin seeks to bring the bill to its first reading in the Knesset plenum in short order and advance the legislation as quickly as possible, to begin trials for the October 7 suspects as soon as possible.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas led an invasion of southern Israel in which 1,200 people were massacred and killed. The thousands of terrorists who burst into the country also abducted 251 people who were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.

Terror operatives committed numerous atrocities during the savage invasion, many of which were documented by the terrorists themselves on bodycams they wore during the attack.

The IDF estimated that it killed more than 1,600 terrorists during the onslaught in Israel, and captured 149.

Numerous law enforcement agencies have been developing plans for prosecuting them, but steps to advance prosecutions have likely been delayed due to concerns that doing so would risk the lives of the hostages in Gaza.

Under the terms of the legislation and the special tribunal it would establish, the state would be able to seek a death sentence for those convicted of such crimes falling under the genocide law, although that decision would need to be approved by the prime minister in consultation with senior security officials.

Levin supports the death penalty for those convicted of such crimes, and the indictments have been drafted to enable the suspects to be tried for crimes punishable by death.

As well as genocide charges, the special tribunal would also be able to try suspects on charges of crimes against humanity, murder, rape and hostage taking,

The tribunal would be staffed by a total of 15 judges who are either qualified to serve on Israel’s Supreme Court or are international jurists whom the justice minister in consultation with the foreign minister deem have the appropriate qualifications to sit on such a panel.

An individual case would be heard by three judges, while a 5-judge panel would hear proceedings involving multiple indictees. Appeals would be heard by all 15 judges.

In the press statement, Levin said that intensive work had been conducted since the October 7 Hamas invasion by the State Attorney’s Office, the police and the Shin Bet, which carried out comprehensive investigations into the terrorist operatives detained in Israel between October 7 and 14, and gathered “unprecedented volumes of evidence” against them.

This includes thousands of hours of video footage and thousands of hours of testimony, the minister stated. Draft indictments have now been produced for the alleged terrorist operatives based on this evidence.

But due to the large number of cases and the special circumstances of the crimes they are alleged to have committed, Levin said that a need arose to make a number of legislative amendments “to ensure that the legal process is conducted efficiently and that justice is both done and seen.”

Source: timesofisrael.com, Staff, October 19, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state.

Tennessee | Republicans legislature to investigate other execution methods after failed lethal injections

Republican leaders in Tennessee’s legislature say they will investigate the reliability of lethal injection as an execution method after the state failed to execute two death row inmates in the span of five months. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the May execution of Tony Carruthers after a physician unsuccessfully attempted to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process for over an hour. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two failed rounds of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol on Sept. 30 before the execution was halted. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, is receiving medical care in a Nashville hospital.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

What Tennessee wants to do next to Christa Pike is beyond grim

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive. If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again. As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. A Defense Department official told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed. It is believed it would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century. The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain", said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

Opinion | I Know Christa Pike’s Medical History. What Tennessee Did Is Unforgivable.

Dr. Zivot is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. He consulted on Christa Pike’s case before her attempted execution. On Wednesday night, Christa Pike lay strapped to a gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville while the State of Tennessee injected pentobarbital, a sedative that is lethal in high doses, into her veins. When the 1st dose did not kill her, the execution team gave her a 2nd. At one point, she told the room her arm felt as if it were about to burst. She was nearly correct. More than an hour after the procedure began, an ambulance was called. She was severely injured but still alive.

Florida executes James Robertson

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

After Christa Pike survives lethal injection, America's shameful botched executions

The US is one of the few Western nations that still permits the death penalty, carried out regularly in 27 states. And in a country where regional political culture strongly favours retributive justice, it is no wonder capital punishment remains an enduring part of the American legal system. But following Christa Pike's botched lethal injection last week, fresh questions are being raised over whether executing convicted murderers and rapists outweighs the risks of an innocent person being put to death, or of an execution going so badly that a prisoner is left to die in agony, or even survives the attempt.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog