{"id":446739,"date":"2026-05-17T21:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/446739\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T21:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T21:41:11","slug":"death-penalty-law-for-palestinian-terrorists-comes-into-effect-in-west-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/446739\/","title":{"rendered":"Death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists comes into effect in West Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank came into effect Sunday night, after the commander of the IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen Avi Bluth, signed the military order necessary to enact the measure in the territory.<\/p>\n

The order requires that a military court presiding over the prosecution of terrorists whose attacks resulted in the death of a victim apply the death penalty alone as the only available sentence, unless the court finds special circumstances allowing for life imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Following the passage of the legislation at the end of March, Defense Minister Israel Katz requested that Bluth approve the military order, which he did on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The legislation has been widely condemned as discriminatory since it states explicitly that it does not apply to Israeli citizens or residents of Israel. It also only applies to terror trials in the military courts system, which is used for Palestinians, while Israelis are tried in Israel\u2019s civilian court system.<\/p>\n

In addition, one of the three conditions for imposing the death penalty is that the motive of the attacker was to either \u201cnegate the existence of the State of Israel or the authority of the military commander in the area\u201d \u2014 motives that would likely only be aplicable to Palestinian terrorists.<\/p>\n

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Several organizations and politicians have petitioned the High Court of Justice against the law, and the court ordered the state to respond by May 24.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPalestinians demonstrate against Israel\u2019s new death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of deadly acts of terror in Nablus, West Bank, March 31, 2026. (AP\/Majdi Mohammed)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a clear and sharp change of policy after the October 7 [2023] massacre: A terrorist who murders Jews can no longer rely on [prisoner exchange] deals, [good prison] conditions, or the hope to be released in the future,\u201d Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever chooses murderous terrorism against Jews needs to know that the State of Israel will bring him to justice all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Katz, \u201cTerrorists who murder Jews will not sit in prison in pleasant conditions, will not wait for [prisoner exchange deals] and will not dream of release \u2014 they will pay the heaviest price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Gvir lauded the signing of the military order as the fulfilment of a campaign promise of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, saying, \u201cWe promised and we fulfilled\u201d and that \u201cwe do not capitulate or contain murderous terrorism, we defeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the law has been roundly condemned for targeting Palestinian terrorists specifically and excluding Israelis from its provisions, it is unclear if the legislation will lead to the automatic death penalty sentences that its authors seek.<\/p>\n

The condition requiring that the terror attack be carried out with the motive of \u201cnegating the existence of the State of Israel or the authority of the military commander in the area\u201d may be hard to prove in court in many cases, leaving judges with room to impose a prison sentence instead.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank came into effect Sunday night, after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29365,42,2723,837,43,4033,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-446739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-death-penalty","tag-headlines","tag-israel-katz","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-news","tag-palestinian-terrorism","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}