DUBAI: An Israeli law permitting the death penalty for West Bank Palestinians went into effect on Sunday, media reports said.
Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the head of the Israeli army’s Central Command, signed the military order necessary to implement the measure in the occupied West Bank, The Times of Israel reported
Under the order, courts presiding over cases involving Palestinian attacks that have resulted in the death of Israeli citizens must impose the death penalty as the “the only available sentence” unless “special circumstances” allow for life imprisonment.
Haaretz reported that the wording of the law make its application almost exclusively directed at Palestinians. The ideological proof requirements included in the legislation make applying it to Jewish attackers “difficult or nearly impossible,” the Israeli newspaper said.
One of the conditions for imposing the death penalty involves the motive of a suspect under prosecution, either to “negate the existence of the State of Israel or the authority of the military commander in the area” — likely to be applicable only to Palestinians.
Israel’s parliament in late March passed a law that allowed the execution of Palestinians convicted of terror charges for deadly attacks, a move that has been criticized as discriminatory and immediately drew a court challenge.
Eight Arab and Islamic countries — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, the UAE, Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt — have condemned the Knesset’s approval of the death penalty law against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Foreign ministers of the countries warned against the “increasingly discriminatory, escalating Israeli practices that entrench a system of apartheid and a rejectionist discourse that denies the inalienable rights and the very existence of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
They said the legislation constitutes a dangerous escalation considering its discriminatory application against Palestinian prisoners amid credible reports of abuses including torture, starvation and denial of basic human rights.
