The Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC) strongly condemns the passing of Israel’s second death penalty law and calls for immediate international measures against Israel.

Encouraged by the failure of the international community to take concrete measures in response to its manifestly illegal and highly discriminatory death penalty law of 30 March 2026 – the Israeli Knesset has added to its body of apartheid legislation a second death penalty law. Passed on 11 May 2026 by a unanimous vote of 93-0 in a rare show of bipartisan support, the law (co-sponsored by Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism party and Yulia Malinovsky of opposition group Yisrael Beytenu, and strongly backed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin) establishes a special military tribunal to prosecute Palestinians allegedly involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023.

In its longstanding pursuit of Palestinian erasure through an apartheid legal framework and ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, the Knesset has attempted to circumvent the prohibition on the retroactive application of capital punishment by transplanting existing Israeli criminal offences – including treason, assisting an enemy in wartime, and genocide under the 1950 Law for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – into a bespoke tribunal system empowered to impose the death penalty, in proceedings with significantly diminished due process protections.

The law consolidates executive control over the judicial process, by granting the Minister of Defence overarching authority over its implementation, subject only to periodic reporting to a Knesset committee. It further grants the tribunal authority to deviate from standard evidentiary and procedural safeguards. Judges, for example, are granted broad discretion to admit evidence obtained under coercive conditions that, in the context of Israeli detention centres, may amount to torture or ill-treatment, in direct contravention of the absolute prohibition of torture and right to a fair trial under international law.

The law permits sweeping exemptions from ordinary legal procedures to facilitate mass trials, further undermining the right to a fair trial. Key stages of the proceedings will be publicly broadcast on a dedicated website, including opening hearings, verdicts, and sentencing, transforming the proceedings into performative “show trials” that violate the presumption of innocence and the right to dignity of the accused.

The law allows verdicts on the imposition of the death penalty (a punishment provided under the 1950 Genocide Law) to be reached by a majority rather than a unanimous decision. Prisoner exchange agreements, for the release of individuals accused, charged, or convicted under the law, are prohibited, demonstrating their punitive and exceptional character, aimed not at justice but at imposing the harshest penalties.

That Israeli authorities will treat each of the defendants as guilty and charge them with the gravest offence available has already been confirmed. Malinovsky, a co-sponsor of the bill, stated: “These will be the trials of the modern-day Nazis, and they will go down in the history books.” Rothman, the other co-sponsor, echoed similar sentiments: “This is a historic framework intended to deliver justice and bring to trial the terrorists who carried out the worst massacre in the state’s history”. Israel’s Minister of Finance Smotrich, who leads Rothman’s Religious Zionism party, made clear that “justice” in this context means punishment, propounding: “We will neither forget nor forgive. Those who murdered, raped, and massacred will pay the price (…) we are delivering justice!”

That the second death penalty law has garnered broad political support across both coalition and opposition parties, as well as endorsement from the Attorney General’s Office, reflects a deeply entrenched consensus in Israel that the Palestinian people must be destroyed by all and any means necessary. Concerns raised during legislative deliberations have focused not on the law’s legality, but on its financial cost, highlighting the extent of their indifference to Palestinian life and the profound human rights violations the law entails.

The multitude of grave violations of international law posed by the death penalty law passed just over a month ago are equally present in this subsequent iteration. This latest genocidal measure treats indictment – or even detention – as equivalent to guilt, eroding the most basic principles of justice. Accountability for serious crimes must be pursued in accordance with international law, including the principles of legality and with strict adherence to fair trial guarantees. The imposition of the death penalty under such conditions constitutes a breach of the jus cogens prohibition of torture; an arbitrary deprivation of life; a violation of the right to a fair trial and the right to dignity; and a breach of the principles of legality and non-discrimination. Moreover, if imposed, the law will form the basis for the commission of the international crimes of killing as a genocidal act; wilful killing and collective punishment as a war crime; and murder and apartheid as crimes against humanity.

It is now well-established that the death penalty itself amounts to torture due to the psychological toll on the individual, thereby further establishing torture as a crime against humanity and the genocidal act of causing serious mental harm. Finally, and of paramount importance, the imposition of death sentences in a fundamentally unfair, apartheid system which legislates for the erasure of the Palestinian people will inflict serious and lasting mental harm on Palestinian families and wider communities.

At this juncture, it is crucial to recall that Palestinians tried in Israeli military courts face a conviction rate of 99 per cent. In contrast, the conviction rate for Israelis tried in civilian courts for crimes committed against Palestinians lies at around three per cent. Hence, and in the continued absence of any concrete and meaningful response by Third States, Israel’s perpetration of additional atrocity crimes on the basis of this latest law is guaranteed.

PHROC reiterates our call on the international community to:

1. Respect and act upon their binding legal duty to prevent and punish the crime of genocide and to respect and ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions of 1949. This includes: imposing a full arms embargo; cutting diplomatic and trade relations; imposing comprehensive sanctions; and pursuing accountability;

2. Act in accordance with their 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;

3. Call on the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and the regional organisations 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;

4. Ensure the reconstitution of the UN Centre Against Apartheid and UN Special Committee against Apartheid;

5. Calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to broaden its investigation into the Situation in Palestine to include prosecutions for the crimes of genocide, persecution and apartheid.