Israel passes first reading of bill proposing death penalty for people it deems terrorists

Israel's parliament has passed the first reading of a bill proposing the death penalty for those it deems to be terrorists acting against the state - a requirement which means it is likely to be used only against Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis.

The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir - whose Jewish Power party brought the vote - celebrated late on Monday by handing out sweets after the bill was approved in the 120-seat Knesset by 39 votes to 16.

"After the law is finally passed - terrorists will only be released to hell," he said.

The bill must pass two more readings before becoming law.

In the same session, the Knesset also approved the first reading of another controversial bill allowing the Israeli government to close a foreign media outlet without court approval. That vote was 50 in favour and 41 against.

The legislation aims to turn a temporary order that allowed the closure of Qatari-owned Al Jazeera in May 2024, into a permanent law. It has been opposed by the government's legal advisers.

While the death penalty does exist for a small number of crimes in Israel it has only been used twice since 1948 when the state was created. The last time was when the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, was hanged in 1962, after a public trial.

An amendment to the penal code was demanded by the Jewish Power party and signed off by the Knesset's National Security Committee, which said in a statement that its purpose was to "nip terrorism in the bud and create a weighty deterrent".

The statement read: "It is proposed that a terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or hatred towards the public, and under circumstances where the act was committed with the intent to harm the State of Israel and the rebirth of the Jewish nation in its homeland will be sentenced to the death penalty - mandatory."

The clause about harming Israel makes it likely that Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks, but not Jewish Israelis, will be sentenced to death.

The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority - which governs parts of the occupied West Bank - called the proposed law a "new form of escalating Israeli extremism and criminality against the Palestinian people".

Ben-Gvir had long pushed for the death penalty bill to be brought to a Knesset vote, but such a move was previously opposed by Israeli political and security leaders who argued it could complicate efforts to free living Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

That is no longer a concern since their return after the start of the Gaza ceasefire last month.

Ben-Gvir was one of just a few Israeli ministers who voted against the Gaza ceasefire deal which aimed to end the war. This saw 20 living hostages sent home in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including about 250 serving life sentences, many convicted of killing Israelis.

"A dead terrorist does not get released alive," commented Limor Son Har-Melech, a member of Jewish Power, and sponsor of the bill.

In 2003, during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, a then-pregnant Har-Melech and her husband - who lived in a settlement in the occupied West Bank - were attacked by Palestinian gunmen while in their car. Her husband was killed and she was injured, leading her to give birth by an emergency caesarean section.

She told the Knesset one of her husband's killers went on to be released in a previous exchange deal to bring home an Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza. She said he went on to command a deadly attack on another Israeli and take part in the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, before he was killed during the Gaza war.

Responding to the draft bill, Palestinian human rights organisations said its "most alarming aspect" would be that if it became law, it could be used to apply retroactively.

They suggested its intent was "executing collective death sentences that could target hundreds of Palestinian detainees from the Al-Qassam Brigades' elite forces who were arrested on or after 7 October", referring to Hamas's military wing.

Israel's justice minister has already said he is seeking Knesset legislation to set up a special criminal tribunal to try Gazans accused of involvement in the attacks of 7 October 2023, in a process that could result in death sentences being handed down to those convicted.

Some 1,200 people were killed two years ago in the cross-border attack on southern Israel by several thousand armed Hamas fighters. In the war that it triggered, the Hamas-run health ministry said more than 69,000 people were killed in Gaza.

The push by Israeli lawmakers to formalise what has become known as the "Al Jazeera Law" also follows on from the Gaza ceasefire.

During the war, a ban imposed by Israel's ministry of communications forced Al Jazeera to close its office at a hotel in occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli military then ordered the closure of the network's office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, claiming it was a threat to national security.

Israel accused Al Jazeera of anti-Israel bias and of supporting Hamas in its news coverage. Al Jazeera has repeatedly denied such accusations and condemned Israel's actions.

The new international media legislation would give the government permanent powers to stop foreign broadcasters in Israel, even outside times of war or national emergency and would remove the need for judicial oversight.

Last year, when petitioning the High Court of Justice against the temporary order allowing sanctions on foreign broadcasters, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) argued that "the law violates freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom of the press, and blocks citizens and residents from receiving a variety of information that does not fit the Israeli narrative or is not broadcast on Israeli media channels."

The two controversial bills are expected to be prepared for second and third parliamentary readings.