HANGING LAW IS A WAR CRIME – UN RIGHTS CHIEF
Israel is preparing to execute prisoners and it will only apply to Palestinians – not to Jews. A new law to bring back hanging has been passed, putting thousands of Palestinians in Israel’s prisons in mortal danger.
There were chilling scenes in the Knesset on March 30 as Israeli MPs swigged champagne to celebrate the move.
The law to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners found guilty of murder has been pushed by the Jewish Power party headed by security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. It was passed by 62 to 48, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu among the supporters. Ben-Gvir was wearing a golden lapel badge in the shape of the noose.
Death by hanging will be mandatory in a case where a murder has been committed “wilfully or negligently” with the intention of “rejecting the existence of the state of Israel”. In effect it will apply only to Palestinians and not for example to Israeli settlers who kill locals in the West Bank. Verdicts require only a majority of the judges, with no need for unanimity, and hangings must be carried out within 90 days of the verdict, leaving little chance to appeal.
Applying the new law would be a cause to haul Israeli leaders before the International Criminal Court, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who said it is “a violation of international law…Its application would constitute a war crime”. Trials of Palestinians in the West Bank are conducted in military courts, not the Israeli civil courts. Evidence obtained by torture is allowed, and the conviction rate is around 96 per cent.
Israel holds nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, around half of them without trial. These could be charged and hanged, though the new law cannot be applied to those convicted already. It will apply in Israeli civil courts too but the requirement for “rejecting the existence of the state of Israel” would rule out Jewish Israeli defendants.
Since October 2023, at least 98 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons. Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has called the prison system there a “network of torture camps”. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, at least 14,000 people from Gaza are missing, presumed to be dead or detained.
Hanging is a barbaric development since Israel’s existing capital punishment law stipulates lethal injection, though there have been no executions since 1962. Israeli doctors refused to continue applying it. Now Ben-Gvir claims 100 doctors have volunteered to carry out executions if legislation is approved.
But hanging recalls the brutal practices of the former British colonial regime. According to official sources 112 Arab nationalists, as Palestinian rebels were described, were hanged after the 1936-39 revolt. Several are still revered as martyrs to the Palestinian cause. British security forces killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in combat and through extrajudicial killings.
Soldiers were authorized to shoot to kill rioters. Up to 1948, British forces were facing two rebellions – from the early Jewish settlers as well as the indigenous Palestinians. The newly revived hanging law reflects the differential approach taken by the British. In 1939 the hangings were called a “rope for Arabs only” by Palestinians since Jewish insurgents were then tolerated.
From 1947, when the Zionist paramilitary gangs were fighting for immediate independence, 12 Jews were hanged and about 40 killed in combat with the British; far fewer than Palestinian militants. Today, British Jews with the organisation Na’amod are campaigning against the law. A UK petition urging the Israeli government to reconsider has over 100,000 signatures and will be debated by MPs.
