Defense Minister Israel Katz and Justice Minister Yariv Levin on Thursday discussed the establishment of a military tribunal to prosecute terrorists from Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force for their role in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in the northwestern Negev, the Israeli Defense Ministry said.
The meeting—which was held with senior IDF and Justice Ministry officials more than two years after the surprise invasion—examined the possibility of creating a special legal framework to try those responsible for carrying out “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” with the defense minister instructing the military to begin work on the legal, operational and international implications of such a move.
“The State of Israel is committed to punishing the perpetrators of the massacre in a way that makes it unequivocally clear—anyone who harms Israeli civilians will be held fully accountable,” Katz said.
Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 others were abducted to Gaza during the massacre, the bloodiest single-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
