Death Penalty News

Hundreds of Hamas terrorists accused of committing war crimes during their October 2023 attack could face the death penalty after Israel late Monday approved the creation of a special military tribunal to prosecute their cases. In a rare show of Israeli political unity, the legislation received broad backing from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and much of the opposition, passing with 93 votes in favor and zero against.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament on Monday passed a law approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, a measure that has been harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane. The passage of the bill marked the culmination of a years-long drive by the far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the Knesset to vote for the bill in person. The law makes the death penalty — by hanging — the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges — language that legal experts say effectively confines those who can be sentenced to death to Palestinian citizens of Israel and excludes Jewish citizens.

The Knesset is set to vote on the far-right Otzma Yehudit party’s controversial bill to legislate the death penalty for terrorists in its second and third readings. The bill is likely to be passed despite reported pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit chair to withdraw the bill. It is among a series of last-minute laws that the coalition is trying to advance prior to the end of the current Knesset legislative session tomorrow and the beginning of the Knesset’s Passover recess.

The Knesset National Security Committee is expected to wrap up deliberations on a controversial bill that would mandate the death penalty for terror convicts and send it to the full Knesset for its final two readings before becoming law, a spokesperson tells The Times of Israel. “There is still work being done in the committee,” the spokesperson says. That work includes revisions to the bill, but “the intention is to complete preparation of the bill in the committee this week and transfer it to the plenum.” Haaretz reported earlier today that the committee is hoping to send the bill to the plenum as early as next week.

Prime minister presses Itamar Ben-Gvir to amend proposed law mandating execution for terrorists, citing international and legal concerns as security agencies and opposition lawmakers push back. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to soften a proposed bill mandating the death penalty for terrorists, citing concerns over potential international fallout, officials familiar with the matter told ynet on Saturday.  Netanyahu’s aides approached Ben-Gvir, who opposes changes to the legislation, arguing that Israel cannot enact a death penalty law harsher than the standard applied in the United States. Sources said the prime minister and coalition leaders would not allow the bill to pass in its current form.

Tehran’s Friday prayer leader Ahmad Khatami called for the execution of detained protesters and the arrest of anyone who supported the protests, delivering the remarks during his Friday sermon. Khatami, a hardline cleric appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader, accused protesters of acting on behalf of foreign powers, calling them “servants" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "soldiers of Trump." “They should await a harsh retaliation from the government. Americans and Zionists should not expect peace,” Khatami said. “The demonstrators were servants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and soldiers of Trump.”

For years, there was a broad consensus in Israel that there was no benefit to reintroducing the death penalty. But now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is reportedly considering supporting a bill which would bring back capital punishment for convicted terrorists. The bill, which has passed its first reading in the Knesset, would introduce the death penalty for those who murder Jews – specifically, Palestinian terrorists. It would not apply to Jews who commit acts of terrorism and murder Palestinians. And it would not apply if Israeli Arabs, who are full citizens, are murdered.

IDF said to support the law but only if sentence handed down on case-by-case basis; Smotrich reportedly pushing for it to apply to Jews who spy for Iran as well In a major shift, Shin Bet Chief David Zini has informed the government that the security agency supports a controversial bill to enact the death penalty for terrorists, according to Hebrew media reports on Friday. Zini was said to have endorsed the legislation on the agency’s behalf at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday night. According to an unnamed source cited by Channel 12, during the meeting, Zini was asked by Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem if he believed the death penalty would deter would-be terrorists, to which he replied that it would.

The legislation is expected to be brought before the Knesset plenum for a preliminary vote this week. A bill to impose the death penalty on convicted terrorist murderers is expected to advance in the Knesset this week after gaining the backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, Jerusalem’s coordinator for the captives and missing, told lawmakers on Monday morning that the premier withdrew his opposition to the bill after the last living hostages taken to the Gaza Strip by Hamas terrorists were released.

Horrifying footage has emerged which shows Palestinians being executed by Hamas, sparking fears that the Gaza peace deal is already at risk of collapsing as the terror group tries to cling to power.  In disturbing footage circulating on social media, a group of men can be seen kneeling on the ground with their hands behind their backs.  Armed militants - some wearing Hamas-style headbands - stand behind the victims with their faces covered before gunshots ring out and the seven kneeling men fall to the ground, apparently lifeless.  Cheering crowds scream 'Allah Akbar,' or 'God is great', and brand the executed men 'collaborators' while filming the scenes on their phones. A Hamas source confirmed the authenticity of the video.

More than 400 senior clerics in Iran’s holy city of Qom have backed a religious decree labeling threats against Supreme Leader as “moharebeh” or “waging war against God,” a crime in Islamic law that can carry the death penalty. The members of the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom, many of whom are senior religious scholars in Iran’s influential Shi’ite seminaries, said they were endorsing a fatwa which declared those who threaten religious authority figures – including the Supreme Leader – fall into the category of mohareb and must face the corresponding religious and legal consequences.is

Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar believes authorities in the United States should pursue the death penalty against the alleged gunman responsible for last week’s murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, he told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “I think this is an important message that all the antisemitic people should know — that there is a big price to pay if they do these kinds of actions,” Zohar said of his support for pursuing the death penalty against 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez. “I think this is maybe a good idea, to give a very, very hard penalty against this criminal. And I’m hoping that a strong action against him — or maybe against people that supported him or sent him to do that — will deliver a message that people should avoid this antisemitic way in the future.”

Southern District Attorney Erez Padan, who is in charge of prosecuting Nukhba [special forces unit of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas] terrorists, is also reportedly opposed to pursuing convictions for crimes that can not be proven in court. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has prohibited public hearings on a proposed law to execute October 7 Nukhba terrorists, fearing it could endanger the lives of hostages still held by Hamas, according to Maariv. The legislation, referred to as the “Genocide Prevention Law,” which was introduced by MKs Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party) and Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beytenu), aims to apply the death penalty to individuals found guilty of promoting genocide. Currently, Nukhba terrorists are prosecuted under standard criminal charges in the penal code.

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli district court on Monday convicted a Jewish extremist of murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents, a case that had sent shock waves through Israel and helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The court ruled that the Jewish settler Amiram Ben-Uliel hurled firebombs late one night into a West Bank home in July 2015 as a family slept, killing 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived. “This trial won't bring my family back,” Hussein Dawabsheh, the toddler’s grandfather, said outside the courtroom in central Israel. “But I don't want another family to go through the trauma that I have.” At the time of the arson killing, Israel was dealing with a wave of vigilante-style attacks by suspected Jewish extremists. But the deadly firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma touched a particularly sensitive ...

Pressure on the Iranian government increases as angry anti-government protests with rises in the country.  Protestors make headlines joining in the protest for the second day calling justice for the mistake military shooting down of a Ukranian passenger jet killing around 176 passengers. Thousands of fearless protestors took to streets without fearing heavy police presence demanding the resignation of the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani while criticizing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by chanting “death to the dictator” which is an offense punishable by incarceration followed by execution. Witnesses told New York Times’ Farnaz Fassihi that authorities tried to block Azadi Square as massive crowds gathered.  The security forces teargassed and special forces and militia members attacked protestors by firing rubber bullets to curb the violence breakout. The mob fury was further fueled with on Sunday with Iran’s moderate daily newspaper Etemad asking those who ar...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ettinger’s family during a condolence visit that he would attempt to legislate the death penalty for terrorists in Israel IDF destroys Omar Abu Laila’s apartment in northern West Bank village of Zawiya, months after he killed Gal Keidan and Achiad Ettinger at Ariel Junction. Israeli forces demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian terrorist who killed a rabbi and an IDF soldier in a shooting spree last month, the IDF announced Wednesday. On March 17, Abu Laila fatally stabbed Sgt. Gal Keidan at the Ariel Junction outside the West Bank settlement of the same name, grabbed the soldier’s gun and opened fire, hitting Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, before stealing his vehicle and fleeing the scene. He then drove to the nearby Gitai junction, where he opened fire again, wounding soldier Alexander Dvorsky, before fleeing on foot into the nearby village of Burqin. RELATED |  Netanyahu to slain rabbi’s family: We’ll seek to enact deat...

But PM says legislation ‘not promising’ and ‘we don’t determine the punishment’; relatives of Achiad Ettinger accuse IDF soldiers of failing to open fire at terrorist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday paid a condolence call to the family of Rabbi Achiad Ettinger, who was killed in a combined shooting and stabbing terror attack in the northern West Bank on Sunday. During the visit in the central West Bank settlement of Eli, Netanyahu told the bereaved family he would attempt to legislate the death penalty for terrorists in Israel. “It’s not promising, it’s not promising,” he added, according to footage from the visit. Ettinger, a 47-year-old father of 12, succumbed to his injuries on Monday, a day after the attack that began at Ariel Junction, in which IDF soldier Gal Keidan, 19, was also killed. According to Israeli authorities, after fatally stabbing Keidan, the suspect, who has been named as Omar Abu Laila, 18, grabbed his gun and opened fire at passing ...

Top government ministers are demanding that the courts finally invoke Israel's underutilized death penalty. What's got the whole nation in a uproar is the savage murder last Thursday in Jerusalem of a teenage Jewish girl by a knife-wielding Palestinian man. Ori Ansbacher, 19, was taking a stroll in a wooded area just a few hundred yards from Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo when she was set upon by 29-year-old Arafat Irfayia, a Palestinian from Hebron. Details of the attack are under a strict gag order, but local media and government officials have described Ansbacher's slaying as "grisly" and "brutal." It is also clear that the act of violence, if not the choice of victim, was premeditated. After being arrested in an IDF raid on the Palestinian Authority's de facto capital of Ramallah, Irfayia admitted to Israeli authorities to having set off from Hebron early Thursday morning armed with a knife and intent on killing a Jew. DNA ev...

Jerusalem one of 123 nations voting for resolution hailing the ‘possibility of moving away from capital punishment through domestic decision-making’ As the Knesset advances controversial legislation calling for the death penalty for convicted terrorists, Israel this week voted in favor of a United Nations resolution calling for a global moratorium on capital punishment in an effort to abolish the practice altogether. Jerusalem on Tuesday was 1 of 123 countries that supported Resolution A/C.3/73/L.44, which “expresses its deep concern about the continued application of the death penalty” and “welcomes the steps taken by some states to reduce the number of offences for which the death penalty may be imposed.” 36 countries, including the US, opposed the motion. 30 abstained. The resolution, discussed biannually by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, welcomes “initiatives and political leadership encouraging national discussions and debates on the possibility of m...

Nadav Argaman says legislation being pushed by defense minister to allow execution of Palestinian attackers is ‘not helpful’ Shin Bet security service chief Nadav Argaman said on Tuesday that he was “unequivocally” against a controversial bill that aims to make it easier for Israel to sentence convicted Palestinian attackers of civilians and soldiers to death. Argaman was briefing the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on the growing instability in the Palestinian territories, warning lawmakers that the relative calm in the West Bank was a “deceptive quiet.” “I unequivocally oppose the death penalty for terrorists — it’s not helpful,” he said in response to a question from Zionist Union MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin about the legislation, which is set to be debated in the Knesset next week. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead for lawmakers to advance the bill, reportedly going against the advice of the security establishment. Acco...