Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset, on Monday approved a new law permitting the use of the death penalty in certain cases involving terrorism that results in fatalities.
The legislation passed by a vote of 62–48 and was backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his governing coalition.
Under the new law, individuals convicted of carrying out deadly terrorist attacks may be sentenced to death, with execution by hanging being carried out within 90 days of sentencing. Judges are granted discretion to impose life imprisonment instead in cases involving what the law describes as “special circumstances.” The measure does not apply retroactively to individuals already convicted before the law was passed.
The legislation follows Hamas’s mass abduction of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, who were later exchanged for as many as 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including about 250 serving life sentences for deadly terror attacks.
Supporters of the measure say it is intended to deter terror attacks and reduce incentives for terror groups to take hostages as leverage for prisoner swaps. The law explicitly forbids those sentenced to death to be exchanged.
Israel has long had laws permitting capital punishment, but has only used them once: to execute by hanging Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Eichmann, who was tracked down and captured in Argentina by the Mossad, was executed in Israel for his role in helping organize the Holocaust.
Previously, the death penalty required a unanimous decision by a panel of judges, but the new law lowers that threshold to a majority decision by a panel of judges.
The law outlines specific criteria for its application, permitting the death penalty in military courts, which primarily handle cases involving non-Israeli residents, such as Arab residents of the West Bank. It also allows civilian courts to impose the death penalty on individuals who “intentionally caused the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel.”
Critics of the law say it targets Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens.
The application of capital punishment to non-citizens is not unique in Israel’s neighborhood. In several Middle Eastern countries where the death penalty remains legal, foreign nationals have been sentenced to death under domestic law.
In 2025, the United Arab Emirates sentenced three Uzbek nationals to death for the abduction and murder of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan. Saudi Arabia carried out 356 executions in a recent year, including 188 foreign nationals, many of whom were convicted of non-lethal drug offenses, according to Human Rights Watch. In Lebanon, although no executions have been carried out since 2004, more than 47 people remained on death row as of 2019, including at least 16 foreign nationals, according to The Advocates for Human Rights.
Officials in several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, criticized the legislation, calling it “discriminatory.”
“The implementation of this new law would violate international law’s prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,” it said. “Additionally, this law further entrenches Israel’s violation of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid as it will exclusively apply to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Israel, who are often convicted after unfair trials.”
A U.S. State Department spokesperson deferred to Israel’s right to make its own laws on the issue.
“The United States respects Israel’s sovereign right to determine its own laws and penalties for individuals convicted of terrorism,” the spokesperson told The Daily Wire. “We trust that any such measures will be carried out with a fair trial and respect for all applicable fair trial guarantees and protections.”
Globally, capital punishment remains in use in dozens of countries, including the United States and Japan, as well as most of the Middle East. In the United States, three convicted terrorists are currently on death row: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers, who carried out the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and Dylann Roof, who perpetrated the 2015 Charleston church shooting.
Other opponents of the law claim it may escalate tensions and increase security risks to Jews who live outside of Israel.
“We are not bloodthirsty and do not seek to kill; we are a people that sanctifies life, and precisely for that reason, we cannot allow ourselves to abandon lives,” said Israeli lawmaker Tzvika Fogel, who chairs the National Security Committee.
Legal challenges are expected from several organizations opposing the law who have indicated they plan to petition Israel’s High Court in an effort to have the legislation overturned.
The bill was backed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is known for his hard-right and hawkish positions and is frequently criticized by Western media. Following more than 12 hours of debate leading up to the vote, Ben Gvir celebrated the bill’s passage with champagne.
“This is a day of justice for the victims and a day of deterrence for our enemies. No more revolving door for terrorists, but a clear decision. Whoever chooses terrorism chooses death,” Ben Gvir said.
Addressing international criticism, he added: “I say to the people of the European Union, who have applied pressure and threatened the State of Israel, ‘We are not afraid. We will not submit.’ We are in our country with our sovereignty and will protect our citizens. And a terrorist who goes out to kill — let him know that he will go to the gallows.”
Support for the measure also came from Israeli lawmaker Limor Son Har-Melech, whose husband was killed in a terror attack in 2003. She described the legislation as an example of “true Jewish morality.”
“This is a message of justice, deterrence and national responsibility,” she said. “This is also true Jewish morality — one that does not settle for momentary salvation but obligates ensuring that evil will not return to strike.”
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