The Knesset plenum advanced the death penalty for terrorists bill in its first reading late on Monday evening.
The bill was proposed by the Otzma Yehudit Party, and led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. It passed its first reading by a margin of 39-16. It will now return to the Knesset’s committees for further discussion and will still need to pass a second and third reading in the plenum to become a law.
The bill’s explanatory notes say that since imprisonment does not serve as a sufficient deterrence for terrorists, it is proposed that terrorists who commit murder will be punished by death. “This punishment is expected to deter and thus prevent additional acts of terrorism,” the explanatory notes add.
Ben-Gvir called the bill “the most important law in the history of the State of Israel. Every terrorist should know. This law will deter them. It will make them afraid. It will make them think a thousand times before carrying out another October 7.
“Whoever goes against this bill is actively working against the Jewish state,” Ben-Gvir said at an earlier press conference at the Knesset on Monday, ahead of the vote.
'The most important law in the history of the State of Israel'
He slammed Arab MKs Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Tal), Ayman Odeh (Hadash-Tal), and Mansour Abbas (Ra’am), saying “they will, of course, squawk about how the law will lead to the execution of the monsters they are fighting for in the Knesset. Let them keep squawking.”
Tibi was removed from the plenum during the discussion of the bill. Ben-Gvir said that if the bill were passed in its first reading, it would “enter a marathon of discussions to complete the legislation as quickly as possible, so that we can bring it to a vote in the plenum for its second and third readings soon.
“The goal is not to say we’re passing the law, but to actually pass it. There will be absolutely no compromises on our part,” he added.
Opposition leader MK Yesh Atid Yair Lapid said on Monday he would not be voting in favor of the bill because “We don’t play games with the bill proposals that Otzma Yehudit presents.”
Democrats MK Gilad Kariv warned that the law could lead to an increase in terror attacks.
Last week, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for the hostages in the Prime Minister’s Office, said the bill had received backing from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hirsch strongly opposed advancing the bill during the law’s discussion in September.
He had said that the legislation could harm negotiations with Hamas to reach a deal to return the living hostages held in captivity in Gaza at the time.
However, Hirsch said last week that the reality has now changed after the living hostages were returned.
According to the proposed bill, “Whoever murdered an Israeli civilian out of racism or hostility toward the public, to harm the State of Israel and the restoration of the Jewish people in their land, shall be sentenced to no other punishment but death.”
The bill also proposes that in military courts in the West Bank, the death sentence may be imposed by a majority of the judges, and the punishment may not be commuted once imposed.