Israel legalizes death penalty for those guilty of worst Oct. 7 crimes
by Paul Godfrey · UPIMay 12 (UPI) -- Israel's Knesset unanimously passed a death penalty law for Palestinians found guilty of genocide in the Oct. 7 attacks on the country.
Lawmakers on Monday voted 93-0 for the legislation, which also establishes a special military court to try about 300 suspects alleged to have been involved and were detained by security forces inside Israel.
More than a fifth of Knesset Members either abstained or were absent and the debate prior to the vote was marked by tumult, with one Israeli-Arab lawmaker accusing backers of the bill of "politically exploiting" the pain of bereaved families and the removal of some people the public gallery following noisy interruptions.
The tribunal is authorized to prosecute suspects with a range of crimes, up to and including genocide as defined by Israel's 1950 Law for the Prevention of Genocide, and hand down the death penalty to defendants convicted of genocide. Any person suspected of, charged or found guilty of Oct. 7 offenses will be ineligible for prisoner swap or release schemes.
The court on a dedicated site will have a staff of 400, including 15 senior judges, either qualified to serve on the Supreme Court or who are international jurists with cases heard by three or five judges. Appeals would be heard by all 15 judges.
Proceedings will be filmed with key phases of trials available online to the public to stream, but concerns have been raised about the cost, with estimates ranging from $689 million to $1.72 billion.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin hailed the bipartisan passage of the legislation as one of the key achievements of the 37th Knesset, which is up for re-election in October.
"One can feel that we are doing the right thing by finding a way to unite at this moment, even though we are on the eve of elections and despite all the disagreements that exist," he said.
Co-sponsor Simcha Rothman called it a "historic framework intended to deliver justice and bring to trial the terrorists who carried out the worst massacre in the state's history," while the bill's other co-sponsor, Yulia Malinovsky, compared the new judicial structure to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis in the aftermath of World War II.
Speaking to reporters beforehand, she said she hoped it would enable the world to "see how the victims and their families look into the whites of the eyes of those murderers, rapists and kidnappers."
Human rights groups in Israel criticized the new legislation in principle on grounds of opposing all capital punishment and warned about the dangers of "show trials" based on admissions of guilt allegedly obtained through torturing defendants.
"Government coalition members have made it clear that they expect mass executions to result from this court that they've established. We know that Palestinians being held on suspicion of participating in the crimes of Oct. 7 have been tortured, systematically and in a widespread way. My concern is that they are going to be convicted and even executed based on confessions extracted under torture," said Sari Bashi of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
"The people who are responsible for attacking civilians in southern Israel should be held accountable, but not like this. They deserve due process, and the death penalty should never be on the table," added Bashi.
The October Council, which represents victims and survivors of Oct. 7 and their families, held a news conference Monday calling for the entire Knesset to quit and the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry into the attacks in which about 1,200 people were killed, 251 taken hostage and other atrocities were committed, including rape and torture.
"The blood of everyone murdered on Oct. 7 is on your hands. And just before you go, establish the state commission of inquiry that will investigate what exactly happened here, so it never happens again," said former hostage Rom Braslavski.
The group said it aimed to make getting to the truth and politicians' failure to take responsibility the top issue in the upcoming elections.
The new law came six weeks after parliament passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill, making the death penalty mandatory for most Palestinian defendants convicted of terror-related murder in military court, which has also come in for criticism from human rights organizations and the European Union who said it was discriminatory.
Human Rights Watch said at the time that the wording of the legislation made it clear that all or most of those handed the death penalty would be Palestinian.
"Israeli officials argue that imposing the death penalty is about security, but in reality, it entrenches discrimination and a two-tiered system of justice, both hallmarks of apartheid. The death penalty is irreversible and cruel. Combined with its severe restrictions on appeals and its 90-day execution timeline, this bill aims to kill Palestinian detainees faster and with less scrutiny," said deputy Middle East director Adam Coogle.
Brussels said the bill marked a "grave regression" from Israel's long-standing death penalty moratorium and the example it set to the rest of the Middle East.
"We are deeply concerned about the de facto discriminatory character of the Bill," it said in a statement.
The Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill cannot be retroactively applied and therefore cannot be used against suspects alleged to have been involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.
The attacks triggered a massive Israeli military offensive on Gaza with figures from the enclave's Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, showing 72,740 Palestinians killed in the ensuing violence.
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