UN experts decry Israeli bill allowing execution of Palestinians

United Nations experts have condemned an Israeli bill that would permit the regime to impose the death penalty on Palestinian detainees, urging its immediate withdrawal.

In a statement on Wednesday, a dozen independent UN rights experts warned that the bill would violate the right to life and discriminate against Palestinians.

“Mandatory death sentences are contrary to the right to life,” the statement said.

“By removing judicial and prosecutorial discretion, they prevent a court from considering the individual circumstances, including mitigating factors, and from imposing a proportionate sentence that fits the crime,” the UN group added.

The bill pushed by far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir was passed in its first Knesset reading last November.

The bill, which must pass a second and third reading before becoming law, would introduce two tracks for the death sentence in occupied territories.

In the occupied West Bank, “the death penalty would be imposed by military courts under military law for terrorist acts causing the death of a person, even if not intended.”

Meanwhile, in the occupied territories and East al-Quds, death penalty would continue to be applied only under Israeli criminal law and only for the “intentional killing of Israeli citizens or residents.”

The experts’ statement stressed that under both tracks, “vague and overbroad definitions of terrorist offenses under Israeli law would apply, which can include conduct that is not genuinely terrorist, and the death penalty would be mandatory.”

The experts added that "The Bill makes matters worse by allowing death sentences to be imposed by a simple majority vote of military judges, and banning any pardon or commutation, which expressly violates the right to life.”

The UN experts said that Israeli military trials of civilians routinely fail to meet international standards for fair trials, meaning any resulting death sentence would represent a further violation of the right to life.

“The denial of a fair trial also constitutes a war crime,” the group added.

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The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called the bill a war crime and a sign of the regime’s growing extremism and criminality against the Palestinian people.

The ministry said Israel’s judicial system and the Knesset act as the regime’s tools to legitimize crimes against Palestinians and guarantee impunity.

It said the measure is also an extension of the regime's genocide in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, with serious implications for the Palestinian abductees.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have slammed the bill. Hamas said the draft law shows the ugly and fascist nature of Israel, while the Islamic Jihad warned that the bill puts thousands of Palestinians at the risk of execution.

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