Israel Prescribes Death by Hanging for Palestinians Convicted of Terrorism-Related Murder

Israel has just passed a law permitting the state to execute Palestinians who commit deadly attacks by hanging. The law allows the death penalty only to be applied to Palestinians, or “Israeli Arabs”, as the state refers to them, but it does not apply to Israeli Jews. And a law that specifically allows a state to kill part of the population but not others, appears to be apartheid in its conception.

Introduced into the Knesset by Otzma Yehudit Party MK Limor Son Har-Melech on 11 November 2025, the Penal Law (Amendment No. 159) (Death Penalty for Terrorists) Law 5786–2026 was passed by the unicameral Israeli parliament on Monday, 30 March 2026, and the proposal was really brought into fruition by a collation led by National Security minister Ben Gvir, who is too a Otzma Yehudit MK.

An extreme far-right minister, Gvir was passionate in his campaigning to create an ability to execute convicted Palestinians. The minister cracked champagne in the Knesset on the law passing with 62 for and 48 against. And Gvir excitedly informed Al Jazeera on Sunday, that he’s busily arranging for a Palestinian death row to be set up, as he appears to be in a hurry to start hanging people.

The death penalty is a highly controversial form of punishment that is still used in nations, like the US, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where it is applied to punish any person who’s committed a serious criminal offence and they’re found deserving. But the Israeli death penalty is highly discriminatory in its focus on only on executing Palestinians, whom Israel has been genociding in Gaza for 30 months.

Such an extreme breach of human rights and common humanity that this law to specifically execute convicted Palestinians represents, that nations, like France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and even Australia have condemned it as a breach of international law, whilst continuing to support the US and Israel in their war of aggression on Iran.

But then again Israel has never been too concerned with upholding international law.

Hanging Palestinian prisoners

The new death penalty offence created by the legislation involves “a person who intentionally causes the death of another with the aim of harming a citizen or resident of Israel”.

Part of the law permitting the hanging of Palestinians applies to Judea and Samaria, the legislation explains, which is globally known as the occupied West Bank. Death is now the default punishment for military courts when trying a West Bank Palestinian, who has allegedly killed another person via an act that constitutes a terrorism offence under the Counter-Terrorism Law.

Yet, whilst it is the default penalty, if a military court finds special circumstances in relation to a defendant’s case, then that person may be spared the death penalty. And once the penalty is imposed a military commander in the West Bank cannot alter it.

The death penalty can also be applied to Palestinian’s who’ve committed terror-related murder within Israel, if the purpose of their crime was “negating the existence of the state of Israel”. In terms of the civilian courts imposing the death penalty, this is a discretionary punishment left up to the court to decide whether to apply it.

Only a majority of the judges presiding over a case in a civil court needs to approve the death penalty for it to be progressed, as a unanimous decision from the full bench is not needed. And all death sentences are to be undertaken by hanging, and those involved in carrying out the executions will have their identities concealed.

The death penalty bill further amended the Prisons Ordinance, to set out the process of how an inmate is informed that they’re going to be executed, and it further outlines that a prisoner will then be sent to a specific place for those to be executed, which is commonly referred to as ‘death row’. The bill further stipulates that a hanging must take place within 90 days of being ordered.

The legislation also stipulates that no access to death row inmates is allowed, except for in terms of prison officers, religious officials, official visitors, individuals authorised by the minister, as well as lawyers or physicians.

And as for those who can be present during an execution, the new law stipulates that the prison warden, an officer on duty, the president of the District Court or a military court or a judge may all be present during a hanging, while further individuals allowed to observe an execution include official visitors, religious officials, representatives of victims’ families and physicians.

Capital punishment

Israel moving to enact a law permitting execution is at odds with a long-term global trend towards abolishing the death penalty.

The move is also at odds with Tel Aviv’s long-time position on executions. Despite the nation’s laws continuing to hold provisions that do enable execution in certain circumstances, Israel has held a de facto abolitionist position since its last execution in 1962. And Tel Aviv has also favourably supported numerous moves to eliminate the death penalty at forums like the United Nations.

Around 55 countries continue to have execution on the books and to utilise it. Amnesty International explains that in 2024, 46 countries sentenced people to death with 2,087 death sentences handed down that year. Fifteen nations carried out executions that year, with 1,518 people put to death. And by the end of 2024, 113 nations had abolished the death penalty.

However, the number of people executed by China, “the world’s leading executioner”, are not divulged to the rest of the globe, and therefore, Chinese executions are not incorporated into the total number of yearly deaths. Indeed, the rights organisation considers that the number of people Beijing put to death in 2024 could be in the thousands.

Amnesty considers that the death penalty should be abolished globally, as people wrongly convicted are killed, figures show it’s use doesn’t deter crime, execution is often applied in “grossly unfair trials” and in practice, “the weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those with less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic or religious minority”.

The last reason that Amnesty posits as revealing the need to end the use of execution is that some countries, like Iran and Saudia Arabia, use the punishment to put an end to political opponents or to quash dissent. And this is the grey area that plays a factor in Israel’s new exceptionally discriminatory law, which targets people the nation stands accused of trying to exterminate in general.

Violating all levels of law

Israeli human rights organisations, Adalah, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI), and HaMoked, keep an eye on rights issues relating to Palestinians living in the occupied territories, and they released a 26 March 2026 assessment of the proposed death penalty bill just before it was passed.

The rights organisations consider that the law breaches international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and the fundamental principles of Israeli law.

A key issue is that the law is racially targeted legislation, as it is specifically drafted to apply to Palestinians who target Israelis. So, in terms of the West Bank, all Israelis are explicitly excluded from the application of the law.

This is the same for the law in its application in Israel proper. The death penalty can be applied to individuals perpetrating terrorism targeting the existence of Israel, which again rules out Israelis, as even when they perpetrate racially motivated acts of violence, it is not categorised as “a rejection of the state’s existence”.

The bill further violates the right to life as set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and it undermines the international right to be free from torture or other forms of ill-treatment. The legislation further violates international humanitarian law as it enables the occupiers of an illegally occupied people living in an occupied region to put these peope to death.

“More than 70 percent of states worldwide — including the vast majority of democratic states and all EU member states — have abolished capital punishment in law or practice,” the Israeli human rights organisations further set out in their review paper warning against the imposition of an Israeli death penalty targeting Palestinians.

“If enacted, the bill would extend Israel’s broader policy of unlawful lethal state violence, which includes extrajudicial killings carried out with impunity and an abusive and at times deadly incarceration system,” the rights orgs set out in conclusion.