Applying Israel’s death penalty law would be a ‘war crime’: U.N.

GENEVA –

The United Nations on Tuesday harshly criticized the Israeli parliament’s approval of a “cruel and discriminatory” new death penalty bill, warning that applying it in occupied Palestinian territory “would constitute a war crime.”

Under the new law, passed in parliament late Monday, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank convicted by military courts of carrying out deadly attacks classified as “terrorism” will face the death penalty as a default sentence.

A spokesman for U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said the world body stood “against the death penalty in all its aspects, wherever.”