The law providing capital punishment for convicted terrorist murderers took effect in Judea and Samaria on Sunday after the head of the Israel Defense Forces Central Command signed a military order implementing the measure.
“At the instruction of Defense Minister Israel Katz, OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth signed an amendment ... enabling the application of the death penalty to terrorists in Judea and Samaria in accordance with the provisions of the law,” Katz’s office said in a joint statement with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The announcement followed the Knesset’s March 30 approval of legislation mandating the death penalty for non-Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria convicted of carrying out deadly terrorist attacks, unless a military court determines that special circumstances warrant life imprisonment instead.
The bill was sponsored by Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Limor Son Har-Melech, who was seriously wounded in a 2003 Palestinian attack in which her husband was killed.
“I congratulate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the head of Central Command for advancing and implementing this important policy,” Ben-Gvir, who heads the Otzma Yehudit Party, stated on Sunday.
“We promised and we delivered. A terrorist who murders Jews must know that the outcome will not be a prisoner release deal, but the death penalty,” he said. “After Oct. 7, [2023], the State of Israel is changing the equation. In the face of murderous terrorism, we do not retreat and we do not contain—we prevail.”
Katz said that “terrorists who murder Jews will not sit in prison under comfortable conditions, will not wait for deals and will not dream of release—they will pay the heaviest price.
“Our message to every terrorist is clear: Whoever raises a hand against a Jew, whoever harms IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians, the State of Israel will pursue him, reach him and exhaust the law against him to the fullest extent,” he added.
Though Israeli law has long allowed for the death penalty for murder committed by the Nazis and their helpers, as well as for treason, it has only been used twice.
IDF officer Meir Tobianski was executed in 1948 on treason charges. He was later exonerated. SS officer and Nazi Party official Adolf Eichmann was executed in Jerusalem in 1962 for his role in the Holocaust.
