JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL

An Israeli Knesset committee advanced a bill on Sunday to allow the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners accused by Tel Aviv of carrying out attacks.

By 4-1 votes, the Knesset National Security Committee approved the bill authored by the far-right Jewish Power Party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for the first reading, the public broadcaster KAN reported.

The move came despite a request by Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for prisoners and missing in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, to postpone discussing the bill at this time so as not to endanger the lives of Israeli captives held in Gaza.

The bill must be approved in three readings to become law.

The Israeli bill was denounced by the Palestinian Commission for Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society as an “unprecedented savagery,” warning that it would entrench what they described as “systematic crimes” against detainees through legislation.

Israel is acting “above the law and beyond accountability,” the two groups said, citing the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, where more than 66,000 people have been killed since October 2023.

The bill was originally part of coalition agreements between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Ben-Gvir’s party. A preliminary version passed its first reading in March 2023.

If enacted, the law would allow the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis under what Israel defines as “racist or hate-motivated crimes.”

According to Palestinian figures, Israel currently holds about 11,100 Palestinians in its prisons, including 53 women, around 400 children, 3,577 administrative detainees, and more than 2,600 from Gaza classified as “unlawful combatants.”