Urgent Petition to Israeli Supreme Court Against the Death Penalty Law: Racist Legislation Enshrining Inhumane Punishment and Systemic Oppression

31/03/2026

Last night, 30 March 2026, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), and Gisha, together with MKs Aida Touma-Sliman, Ayman Odeh, and Ahmed Tibi, filed an urgent petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, demanding that the “Death Penalty for Terrorists Law, 2026” be declared null and void. The petitioners argue that the law represents a complete negation of the right to life and imposes cruel and inhuman punishment.

The Knesset Plenum voted to enact the law yesterday, 30 March 2026, with 62 votes in favor and 48 against. The law enshrines the death penalty by hanging. It primarily targets Palestinians – both citizens of Israel and residents of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The petition was prepared and submitted by Dr. Suhad Bishara, Adalah’s Legal Director, and Adalah Attorney Muna Haddad.

Click here to read the petition [Hebrew]

Click here to read an unofficial translation of the law

Execution on an Explicitly Racist Basis: The petitioners argue that the law adopts an apartheid-like approach to the fundamental right to life. The law, which adopts the death penalty for those convicted of “intentional causing of death” in the context of terrorism as defined under Israeli law, establishes clear racial separation. In the West Bank, amendments to military orders apply exclusively to the Palestinian population, while the amendment to the Israeli civil law Penal Code conditions the death penalty on intentional acts of murder committed “with the intent to negate the existence of the State.” This formulation is specifically designed to exclude Israeli Jewish perpetrators of similar offenses and to ensure that the law is applied solely against Palestinians.

Violation of Due Process and Judicial Independence: The petitioners argue that the law imposes a near-mandatory death penalty (subject only to extremely rare exceptions) on Palestinian residents of the West Bank, without permitting any meaningful consideration of the circumstances of the offense or the personal circumstances of the defendant. In doing so, the law strips judges of their independence and discretion, rendering the punishment inherently arbitrary. It further permits death sentences to be imposed by a simple majority in military courts; allows courts to impose the death penalty even where the prosecution has not sought or consented to it; abolishes the authority of the Military Commander to mitigate or commute sentences and eliminates any realistic possibility of pardon; mandates an exceptionally short time frame of 90 days to carry out the death penalty, severely undermining the ability to pursue appeals or retrial; and imposes restrictions on access to legal counsel and family visits for those sentenced to death.

Improper Purpose: According to its proponents, the purpose of the law is deterrence, however, the petitioners emphasize that no facts were presented to substantiate this claim. On the contrary, the majority of Israel’s security officials who appeared before the relevant Knesset committee rejected the assertion that the death penalty would have any deterrent effect. Further, academic experts - Prof. Carolyn Hoyle (Professor of Criminology and Director of the Death Penalty Research Unit at the Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford) and Prof. Ron Dudai (Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University and Research Associate at the Death Penalty Research Unit at Oxford University) - emphasize, in an expert opinion provided by the petitioners, that there is no clear empirical evidence demonstrating that the death penalty deters crime; in fact, the prevailing consensus among social scientists and legal scholars weighs decisively against any such effect on murder rates. The petitioners further argue that statements made by the law’s initiators and proponents throughout the legislative process reveal that its true primary purpose is punitive—namely, retribution or vengeance—rather than legitimate deterrence.

Click here to read the expert opinion

Lack of Authority and Apartheid Legislation in the West Bank: The petitioners emphasize that the law cannot apply, directly or indirectly, to Palestinians residing in the West Bank, as they constitute a protected population under occupation. The law applicable to them derives its authority from Regulation 43 of the Hague Regulations, which serves as the foundational norm in the West Bank as occupied territory. Under this norm, the Knesset is not the legislator in the West Bank and lacks the authority to impose laws that contradict the interests of the protected population; in this area, International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law apply to the Palestinians. This contention is reinforced by the fact that the law meets the definition of racist apartheid legislation, which is prohibited under customary international law, International Humanitarian Law, and Human Rights Law.

On 31 March 2026, the Supreme Court decided that the state must respond to the petition and the request for an interim injunction by 24 May 2026.

Case Citation: HCJ 76304-03-26, Adalah et al. v. The Knesset, et al.