‘They already shoot us for no reason. Now they have a death penalty’.
Israel Prison Service officers prepare Palestinian prisoners for release as part of a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, at Ketziot Prison, southern Israel, 26 February 2025
Jared Hillel writes in +972 on 31 March 2026:
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On March 30, the Knesset crossed a new threshold, passing a death penalty law aimed squarely at Palestinians. For the occupied West Bank, the law mandates Israeli military courts to impose the death sentence on anyone convicted of killing an Israeli citizen or resident “with the intent of rejecting the existence of the State of Israel,” which means that in practice, only Palestinians will be targeted.
Under the law, military courts can only bypass this mandate and impose a life sentence if it finds “special reasons” or under “special circumstances.” An earlier version of the bill allowed for no exceptions to capital punishment, but was altered after the military warned that it violated international law, risking the arrest of commanders abroad.
For Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian lawmaker from the Hadash party and a vocal critic of the law, the new “softened” version doesn’t make it any less dangerous. “The first option is still capital punishment,” she explained in an interview with +972. “And in the environment that exists today, I’m not sure any judge will have the courage to decide differently.”
The law also expands penal law to facilitate the use of the death penalty in civilian courts, which handle cases involving Israeli citizens and residents of occupied East Jerusalem. At present, capital punishment in Israeli civilian law is reserved for crimes against humanity and treason, meaning no Palestinian has ever been put to death by an Israeli civilian court.
While the prospect of legally sanctioned executions may appear especially stark, it represents a logical extension of an already lethal carceral system. According to a November 2025 report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, at least 98 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody since October 7 as a result of torture, medical neglect, and forced starvation — dozens of whom were classified as civilians by Israel’s own intelligence.