Photo: Times Of Israel

JERUSALEM, Nov 3, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - An Israeli parliamentary committee on 
Monday advanced a bill proposing the death penalty for "terrorists" a move 
pushed for by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

The National Security Committee approved the amendment to the penal code, 
which will now be passed onto the parliament for its first reading.

Israel's hostages coordinator, Gal Hirsch, said he and Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu backed the measure.

Ben Gvir said he would stop his party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) voting 
with the governing coalition if the law isn't voted on by Sunday, threatening 
the government's survival.

While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has 
become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator 
Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.

A statement from the committee that includes the bill's explanatory note says 
"its purpose is to cut off terrorism at its root and create a heavy 
deterrent."

"It is proposed that a terrorist convicted of murder motivated by racism or 
hatred towards the public, and under circumstances where the act was 
committed with the intent to harm the State of Israel... will be sentenced to 
the death penalty -- mandatory," the statement said.

The rule, it said, was "not optional and without discretion".

The text also proposes that the death penalty can be imposed by a majority of 
judges and the sentence cannot be commuted once the ruling is handed down.

Hirsch had previously opposed debating the bill citing concern for living 
captives held in Gaza.

"Since the hostages are now in Israel, this opposition is no longer 
relevant," he said, according to the statement.

"The prime minister supports this proposal. I consider this law to be an 
additional tool in our arsenal against terrorism and for the release of 
hostages," he added.

The bill was introduced by a lawmaker from Otzma Yehudit.

"There will be no room for discretion in this law," Ben Gvir said on Monday, 
according to the statement.

"Any terrorist who is preparing to commit murder must know that there is only 
one punishment -- the death penalty."

Ben Gvir on Friday posted a video of himself standing over a row of 
Palestinian prisoners lying face down on the ground with their hands tied, in 
which he called for capital punishment.