Al-Haq and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association have submitted two responses to calls for input issued by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, to inform the Secretary General’s report on the death penalty, and the Special Rapporteur on summary, extrajudicial or arbitrary executions. Drawing from its analysis in the joint urgent appeal submitted to UN Special Procedures and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention two weeks after Israel’s draft Penal Bill (Amendment No. 159) (Death Penalty for Terrorists) 2025 was approved by the Knesset Plenum on first reading, along with subsequent developments regarding its planned implementation, Al-Haq and Addameer warn that the Bill marks a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in Israel’s pursuit of Palestinian erasure.

If enacted into law, the Bill would mandate the death penalty for Palestinians accused of causing the death of an Israeli citizen “deliberately or through indifference,” from a motive of racism or hostility against an Israeli citizen and with the aim of harming the State of Israel and “the national revival of the Jewish people in its land”. The proposed legislation, presented as a “counter-terrorism” measure, reportedly would apply retroactively (in direct violation of the principle of legality) introduces two distinct tracks: in the occupied West Bank, military courts would impose the death penalty under military law, by a simple majority of judges rather than a unanimous decision. In Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, the death penalty would apply under Israeli criminal law.

The wording of the Bill makes clear that it will function as yet another apartheid policy and genocidal tool, in that it will apply exclusively to Palestinians, entrenching Israel’s racial domination, subjugation, and destruction of the Palestinian people. In all cases, sentences would be mandatory, carried out by hanging within 90 days, and expressly exempt from commutation. As highlighted thousands of Palestinian detainees – including children – at imminent risk of execution.

In the submissions, Al-Haq and Addameer detail how the Bill violates binding norms of international human rights and humanitarian law. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the death penalty – where not yet abolished – may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes” and following strict compliance with fair trial guarantees. Trials before military courts that lack independence and all key tenets of due process, including access to legal counsel, render any resulting death sentence arbitrary and unlawful. The Bill’s discriminatory application and mandatory imposition of the death penalty, based on a simple majority and without consideration of mitigating factors or the possibility of commutation, compound these violations.

In addition to violating the fundamental right to a fair trial enshrined in Article 14 of the ICCPR and related principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination, the Bill represents a real and blatant risk to the right to life protected under Article 6 of the ICCPR and Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Bill’s violation of the jus cogens prohibition of torture is compounded by widespread documentation of torture and ill-treatment in Israeli detention facilities. Israel’s systematic use of torture, especially to extract false confessions, means that any conviction and subsequent sentence would likely rest on unlawfully obtained evidence.

The Bill also contravenes international humanitarian law, specifically Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting collective punishment. Framed as a counter-terrorism measure amid mass arrests and enforced disappearances across the OPT, the Bill risks enabling collective death sentences against the legally protected Palestinian population living under a protracted, unlawful occupation.

In the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023, Israeli officials publicly spouted genocidal rhetoric attributing collective responsibility to all Palestinians in Gaza. Since then, Israel has stringently pursued a policy of mass detention and enforced disappearance of Palestinians throughout the OPT. An estimated 11,000 Palestinians are being held across 23 prisons, detention facilities and interrogation centres, more than double the number held before 7 October 2023. As of June 2025, 360 Palestinian children were detained in Israeli custody, the highest number recorded in nearly a decade. A significant proportion are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Children in the West Bank are routinely arrested, detained and prosecuted in military courts for broadly defined “security” offences, including allegations of “terrorist activity” which fall squarely under the scope of the Bill.

Finally, the Bill must be considered in the broader context of Israel’s ongoing policies and practices toward the Palestinian people that amount to acts of genocide, apartheid, and persecution. By normalising state-sanctioned executions within a system of racial discrimination and prolonged occupation, the proposed law escalates an already grave situation and further advances Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people.

1. Label the Bill as an unlawful attack on the Palestinian people, including children, that constitutes acts of genocide, apartheid, collective punishment, torture and some of the most serious human rights violations;

2. Call upon Third States to pressure the Israeli government to abandon the Bill;

3. Demand Israel immediately cease its unlawful military activity and genocide in the OPT;

4. Remind States of their binding obligations to prevent and punish the crime of genocide and to respect and ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which includes: imposing a full arms embargo; cutting diplomatic and trade relations; imposing comprehensive sanctions; and pursuing accountability;

5. Urge States to act in accordance with their legal obligations as outlined in the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem;

6. Call on the UN Security Council to implement economic sanctions and other countermeasures capable of forcing Israel to adhere to its binding obligations under international law and ending its mass atrocities against the Palestinian people;

7. Demand the reconstitution of the UN Centre and Special Committee against Apartheid;

8. Ask the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to expedite the investigation into the Situation in Palestine with full resources and onsite visits as promised in December 2022.

Read the joint submission to the UN OHCHR, with a focus on the Bill’s impact on children for the purpose of informing the Secretary General’s report, here.

Read the joint submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on summary, extrajudicial or arbitrary executions, with a focus on how the Bill violates the prohibition on torture, here.