Israel Passes Mandatory Death Penalty for Palestinians Convicted of Terrorism, Flouting International Law and Drawing Widespread Condemnation

On March 30, 2026, law­mak­ers in Israel passed the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law by a vote of 62 to 48, mak­ing Israel one of few democ­ra­cies to expand cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in recent years. The law man­dates death by hang­ing for offens­es clas­si­fied as ​“ter­ror­ism relat­ed” — and as writ­ten, applies exclu­sive­ly to Palestinians. The new law also requires that sen­tences must be car­ried out with­in 90 days of a final ruling.

UN experts have warned that under inter­na­tion­al law, includ­ing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel rat­i­fied in 1991, manda­to­ry death sen­tences are pro­hib­it­ed because they are inher­ent­ly arbi­trary. International law requires that death sen­tences must be reserved only for the most seri­ous offens­es, fol­low fair pro­ceed­ings, and allow for the con­sid­er­a­tion of par­don or com­mu­ta­tion. Israel’s new law, as the UN has not­ed, fails on all three counts. These experts also not­ed that “[a] law that effec­tive­ly sin­gles out Palestinians for exe­cu­tion con­veys that Palestinian lives are less wor­thy of legal pro­tec­tion” and called on the Israeli Supreme Court ​“to inval­i­date this man­i­fest­ly unlaw­ful leg­is­la­tion with­out delay, before it gives rise to irre­versible harm and fur­ther entrench­es dis­crim­i­na­tion, arbi­trari­ness and cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing pun­ish­ment against Palestinians.”

Several coun­tries and oth­er inter­na­tion­al groups have con­demned the law. On April 2, 2026, a group of eight1Muslim coun­tries issued a joint state­ment in which they ​“strong­ly con­demned” the pas­sage of the law and oth­er ​“increas­ing­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, esca­lat­ing Israeli prac­tices that entrench a sys­tem of apartheid.” The European Union, in a state­ment, remind­ed Israel of its human rights oblig­a­tions under the EU-Israel Association Agreement, writ­ing, “[c]onsistent with our glob­al efforts toward uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, the EU urges Israel to abide by its pre­vi­ous prin­ci­pled posi­tion and with its oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tion­al law, as well as its com­mit­ment to democratic principles.”

In Israel’s civ­il court sys­tem, the bill adds a new cap­i­tal offense to Israel’s penal code: the delib­er­ate killing of a per­son with the inten­tion of ​“negat­ing the exis­tence of the State of Israel.” This lan­guage is designed to exclude Jewish Israelis from this pun­ish­ment, ​“effec­tive­ly enshrine(ing) cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for Palestinians alone,” as The Times of Israel not­ed. All exe­cu­tions would be car­ried out by hang­ing, and the law deeply restricts defen­dants’ rights: pro­vid­ing lim­it­ed access to legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and fam­i­ly vis­its, lim­it­ing exter­nal over­sight, and shield­ing any­one who car­ries out an exe­cu­tion from legal liability.

In Israel’s mil­i­tary court, which over­sees crim­i­nal con­vic­tions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the bill man­dates the death penal­ty for any killing clas­si­fied as an act of ter­ror­ism under Israeli law. A judge may be allowed to sub­sti­tute a death sen­tence with a sen­tence of life impris­on­ment under loose­ly defined ​“spe­cial rea­sons,” pro­vid­ing very nar­row excep­tions. Once a death sen­tence is hand­ed down under this law, the sen­tence can­not be reduced or com­mut­ed and must be car­ried out with­in 90 days of the final rul­ing. The bill will not apply retroac­tive­ly to Palestinians already jailed in Israel. Of note, B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, point­ed out ahead of the bill’s pas­sage that the con­vic­tion rate of Palestinians in mil­i­tary courts is about 96%, in many cas­es built upon ​“con­fes­sions” obtained through coerced interrogations.

Upon pas­sage, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a peti­tion with Israel’s Supreme Court, char­ac­ter­iz­ing the law as ​“dis­crim­i­na­to­ry by design.” ACRI’s peti­tion argues that this new law is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al for sev­er­al rea­sons: it vio­lates the right to life and cre­ates a two-tiered legal sys­tem pro­vid­ing dif­fer­ent pun­ish­ments for dif­fer­ent groups. The peti­tion also rais­es con­cerns with the require­ment of car­ry­ing out sen­tences with­in 90 days of a final rul­ing, not­ing this is not enough time for mean­ing­ful appel­late review, clemen­cy, or to prove a wrong­ful con­vic­tion. The ACRI also not­ed that this leg­is­la­tion was passed by the Knesset, which has no legal author­i­ty to leg­is­late over Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Prior to the pas­sage of the leg­is­la­tion, a joint state­ment from the for­eign min­is­ters of Australia, Germany, France, Italy, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom expressed ​“deep con­cern” and urged mem­bers of Knesset to ​“aban­don” the then-pend­ing leg­is­la­tion. The group wrote, “[w]e are par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ried about the de fac­to dis­crim­i­na­to­ry char­ac­ter of the bill,” and that Israel’s adop­tion of this leg­is­la­tion ​“would risk under­min­ing Israel’s com­mit­ments with regards to demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples.” Secretary General for the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, also denounced the leg­is­la­tion pri­or to its pas­sage, call­ing it ​“a grave step back­wards from Israel’s long-stand­ing de fac­to moratorium.”

Notably, the United States refrained from denounc­ing Israel’s new law, with a State Department spokesper­son not­ing the U.S. ​“respect[s] Israel’s sov­er­eign right to deter­mine its own laws and penal­ties,” and they ​“trust” pro­ceed­ings will include ​“respect for all applic­a­ble fair tri­al guar­an­tees and protections.”

The pas­sage of Israel’s bill is the cul­mi­na­tion of years­long efforts from Otzma Yehudit, the far-right polit­i­cal par­ty head­ed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to pass stricter pun­ish­ments for offens­es against Israel and per­pe­trat­ed by mem­bers of Hamas. The coun­try has exe­cut­ed just two peo­ple since its for­ma­tion in 1948 but has main­tained the death penal­ty for geno­cide and wartime espi­onage. Israel’s last exe­cu­tion was car­ried out in 1962, with the exe­cu­tion of Nazi war crim­i­nal Adolf Eichmann.