Statement on Israel’s Death Penalty Law for Palestinians

Today, Israel passed a law making death the default sentence for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank convicted in military courts of lethal attacks labeled “terrorism.” Executions are to be carried out by hanging within 90 days of sentencing, with no route for appeal or clemency and only a vague carveout for “special circumstances.”

The law is built around the two-tier legal regime Israel imposes in the West Bank, where Palestinians are prosecuted under military law while Jewish settlers are subject to a separate civilian system.

These kangaroo military courts have long served as instruments of control and punishment, marked by coercive interrogation, forced confessions through torture, prolonged detention, and conviction rates so high that a fair trial is effectively out of reach.

Israel’s death penalty is now being written into that same apartheid legal order, effectively opening yet another front in its genocidal campaign through formalized, state-sanctioned killing.