DaysofPal- The Knesset’s National Security Committee has voted to advance a bill that would make the death penalty mandatory for convicted murderers whose crimes are deemed acts of “terror”, according to Israeli media reports.
According to the bill, the death sentence would apply to anyone “who is convicted of murder motivated by racism or hostility towards the public, and in circumstances where the act was committed to harm the State of Israel and the resurrection of the Jewish people in its land”.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has pushed the legislation, claims it will serve as an effective deterrent and show Hamas “there is a price tag for what they did,” according to The Times of Israel newspaper.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, reacting to the vote, accused Israel of seeking to legally entrench a crime it has carried out for decades through systematic abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
“Despite the clear stance of international law, which criminalizes the death penalty, the occupation’s insistence on legislating this crime and giving it a ‘legitimate’ veneer again affirms that Israel ‘acts as though it is above the law and beyond accountability”, said the group.
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