The Israeli Parliament (known as the Knesset) passed, on Monday, November 10, the first reading of a bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israeli individuals, with 39 votes in favor and 16 against out of 120 members.

The controversial law has been widely condemned by international and Palestinian human rights organizations and prisoners groups.

On the one hand, the bill only applies to Palestinians who kill Israeli Jews, and not to Jewish citizens convicted of murder. On the other hand, it stipulates executing Palestinians for killing Israelis “either intentionally or recklessly”.

The bill also does not set the unanimity of Israeli judges in the occupied West Bank as a condition to issue the death sentences. A simple majority of judges can make the decision instead.

The approval represents the first of three mandatory readings in Israel’s legislature for the bill to become an official, enacted law.

Palestinian rights groups alarmed by the possible retroactive implementation of the death penalty

Palestinian human rights organizations said in a joint statement on Monday that the “most alarming” aspect of the bill is the possibility of applying it retroactively to Palestinian detainees who were convicted before it became a law.

These organizations noted that applying the law solely to Palestinians, reveals yet “another facet of Israel’s apartheid regime.”

They also emphasized that “the enactment of the law exclusively against Palestinians marks a new episode in the ongoing series of oppression and constitutes a grave escalation in Israel’s widespread violations against Palestinians, including hundreds of extrajudicial executions.”

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Israel must immediately halt the legislation of the discriminatory bill, says Amnesty International

Condemning the approval of the bill, Amnesty International’s senior director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, Erika Guevara Rosas, said in a statement on Tuesday, November 11:

“While the text of the bill does not specifically single out Palestinians, the mental element required for the offense concerned signals its primary victims are going to be Palestinians and would include those who committed the punishable offenses before the law is passed.”

Rosas slammed the Knesset members for broadening the application of the death penalty, when they should be working to abolish it. She further accused Israel of weaponizing the death sentence as a discriminatory tool.

“The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment, and an irreversible denial of the right to life. It should not be imposed in any circumstances, let alone weaponized as a blatantly discriminatory tool of state-sanctioned killing, domination and oppression. Its mandatory imposition and retroactive application would violate clear prohibitions set out under international human rights law and standards on the use of this punishment,” Rosas insisted.

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Moreover, she considered the intended enactment of the death penalty against Palestinians “a dangerous and dramatic step backwards and a product of ongoing impunity for Israel’s system of apartheid and its genocide in Gaza.”

Israel violated its obligations as an occupying power

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor expressed its grave concern over the approval of the bill on Tuesday, warning that “imposing the death penalty against Palestinians constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law on Israel’s obligations as an occupying power.”

The Geneva-based monitor reminded Israel that “Palestinians are protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from imposing the death penalty except in extremely limited cases involving the most serious premeditated crimes, and only where such penalties are based on laws that were in force before the occupation, not on new legislation introduced by the occupying power.”

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