Haredi Shas Party backs death penalty for terrorists ahead of final votes

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Shas Party said it would support a bill to impose the death penalty on convicted terrorists in a final vote on Monday.

“The faction voted in favor of the death penalty law for terrorists in its first reading, in accordance with the directive of the Council of Torah Sages, in light of the position of the security establishment following the [Oct. 7, 2023], Simchat Torah massacre,” Shas said in a statement cited by the Channel 12 News outlet.

“The rabbis instructed Shas representatives to vote in favor of the bill in the final reading,” the party, which holds 11 of the Israeli parliament’s 120 seats, added.

The Knesset National Security Committee on March 24 cleared a bill mandating either the death penalty or life imprisonment for terrorist murderers for its final votes in the Knesset plenum.

Knesset bills require three votes, or readings, by the Knesset plenum to become law. The death penalty bill passed its first reading on Nov. 10 by a vote of 39 to 16. It was then sent to committee for further debate.

With the committee’s work completed, the bill is expected to go to the Knesset plenum for its final two readings later on Monday.

Under the initial text of the proposed law, terrorist murderers faced a mandatory death sentence with no room for judicial discretion. However, after pressure from opposition members and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the bill was revised to give judges the option of imposing a sentence of life imprisonment.

The bill’s wording now reads: “Whoever intentionally causes the death of a person with the intention of harming a citizen or resident of Israel, with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel, shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment, and one of these punishments only.” The bill also applies to terrorists facing a military court in Judea and Samaria.

If a death sentence is passed, it is to be carried out within 90 days by hanging. A prison guard will carry out the execution.

The legislation provides for the prime minister to postpone an execution if he finds there are special reasons for doing so, provided that the total period doesn’t exceed 180 days.

Though the Jewish state has long allowed for the death penalty for murder committed by the Nazis and their helpers, as well as for treason, it has only been used twice.

Israel Defense Forces officer Meir Tobianski was executed in 1948 on treason charges. He was later exonerated. SS officer and Nazi Party official Adolf Eichmann was executed in Jerusalem in 1962 for his role in the Holocaust.

Some 6,000 terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan “civilians,” infiltrated the Jewish state’s southern border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251, in the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.