|
Listen to article
|
The United Nations on Tuesday harshly criticised the Israeli parliament’s approval of a “cruel and discriminatory” new death penalty bill, warning that applying it in occupied Palestinian territory “would constitute a war crime”.
Under the new law, passed in parliament late Monday, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank convicted by military courts of carrying out deadly attacks classified as “terrorism” will face the death penalty as a default sentence.
A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said the world body stood “against the death penalty in all its aspects, wherever”
“The discriminatory nature of this particular law makes it particularly cruel and discriminatory, and we ask that the Israeli government rescind it and not implement it,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
Read Also: Netanyahu Defends Israeli Attacks Against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah
UN rights chief Volker Turk also called for the bill to be “promptly repealed”, warning that it was “patently inconsistent with Israel’s international law obligations”.
Because Palestinians in the territory are automatically tried in Israeli military courts, the measure effectively creates a separate and harsher legal track.
In Israeli civilian courts, the law allows for either death or life imprisonment for those convicted of killing with intent to harm the state.
Israel has only applied the death penalty twice: in 1948, shortly after the state’s founding, against a military captain accused of high treason, and then in 1962, when the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged.
Turk stressed that “the death penalty is profoundly difficult to reconcile with human dignity”, cautioning that “its application in a discriminatory manner would constitute an additional, particularly egregious violation of international law”.
“Its application to residents of the occupied Palestinian territory would constitute a war crime.”
The UN rights chief also expressed alarm at another bill currently before the Knesset aimed at establishing a special military court exclusively to prosecute crimes committed during and in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack inside Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
That court would not have jurisdiction over crimes committed by Israeli forces in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“I urge the Knesset to reject this bill,” Turk said, warning that “by focusing exclusively on crimes committed by Palestinians, it would institutionalise discriminatory and one-sided justice”.
His statement cautioned that “these legislative steps will further entrench Israel’s violation of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid by discriminatorily targeting Palestinians, who are often convicted following unfair trials”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah no longer pose significant threats in the region due to Israel’s degradation of their capabilities.
Netanyahu spoke on Sunday at the IDF Northern Command, where he visited alongside Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.
“Iran is not the same Iran, Hezbollah is not the same Hezbollah, and Hamas is not the same Hamas,” he declared, saying “terrorist armies” are now “battered enemies” fighting for survival.
Commending IDF commanders for their participation in Israel’s “multi-arena campaign,” Netanyahu said Israel stepped up “surprising” and “attacking” its adversaries to prevent offensives.
The premier said the “immense force” against Iran and its proxies was achieving “great accomplishments,” crediting the achievements for the “visible cracks in the terrorist regime in Tehran.”
Netanyahu recalled how former Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who was eliminated in 2024, created a massive force with the intention of perpetrating carnage in Israel.
“We eliminated Nasrallah; thousands of Hezbollah terrorists,” he boasted. “We eliminated the immense threat of 150,000 missiles and rockets that were intended to destroy the cities of Israel.
But Netanyahu emphasized that Hezbollah still has “a residual capability to launch rockets,” revealing his discussions with IDF commanders focused on ways to remove the threats.
Meanwhile, N12, an Israeli news platform, has reported the government’s plans to invite the United States to move some of its Middle East bases to Israel and build new ones after the war.
However, European leaders on Sunday criticized Netanyahu for allegedly preventing Catholics from celebrating Palm Sunday in Jerusalem’s Holy Places.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro said the action was done “without any explanation, reasons or motives,” stressing that coexistence is impossible without tolerance,
“We condemn this unjustified attack on religious freedom and demand that Israel respect the diversity of beliefs and international law,” Sánchez wrote in a post on X.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney similarly faulted Israel’s decision to block the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from marking Palm Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Carney said the act “further violates the longstanding status quo of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites,” adding that people of every faith in Jerusalem should be able to worship freely and without fear.
Britain, France, Germany and Italy expressed “deep concern” on Sunday over Israeli plans to extend the application of the death penalty in a bill due to be voted into law next week.
Their statement came the same day the Council of Europe rights body also issued a statement against the draft law.
“We… express our deep concern about a bill that would significantly expand the possibilities to impose the death penalty in Israel and that could be voted into law next week,” said a joint statement by the countries’ foreign ministers.
