Explainer: Inside Israel’s Death Penalty Law and Life Sentences for Palestinian Prisoners

On Monday, an Israeli panel approved a bill which introduces the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, paving the way for its first reading in parliament.

Here’s Everything You Need to Know

What does it say? The bill would allow Israeli courts to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of killing Israeli settlers on “nationalistic grounds”.

The bill stipulates “the death penalty for anyone who intentionally or negligently causes the death of an Israeli citizen out of racist or hateful motives and to harm Israel.”

Does it apply to Israelis who kill Palestinians under similar circumstances? No.

When asked whether the law would apply to Israeli settlers, MK Limor Son Har-Melech, who sponsored the bill, said that “there’s no such thing as a Jewish terrorist”.

Origin: The proposal was tabled by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party. The bill has been promoted by far-right Israeli parties since before the genocide in Gaza began in October 2023, with renewed calls for its passage in recent months.

It was initiated by Har-Melech from Otzma Yehudit, with an identical proposal submitted by Yisrael Beiteinu’s MK Oded Forer.

The bill could have its first of three readings in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, as soon as Wednesday, Israeli media reported.

The death penalty bill was given preliminary approval last month .

What do Israeli officials say about the bill?

Defending the bill, Har-Melech insisted that it is “very clear and unequivocal”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also gave the green light for the bill to move forward, according to Prisoners and Missing Persons Coordinator Gal Hirsch who added that the bill was “a tool in the toolbox that allows us to fight terror and secure the release of hostages.”

Ben Gvir, the leading advocate of the legislation, thanked Netanyahu for his support.

If this is the only democracy in the Middle East, what does a dictatorship look like?

“This is how we treat them. Minimum of minimum conditions. But there’s something else we must do: death penalty for the terrorists” pic.twitter.com/hgSzGAJGxD

— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) October 31, 2025

“I thank the prime minister for his support for Jewish Power’s bill for the death penalty for terrorists,” he wrote on X.

“Unprecedented Act of Savagery”

The bill to execute Palestinians has been widely slammed by Palestinians.

Hamas condemned the move, saying the bill “embodies the ugly fascist face of the rogue Zionist occupation”.

It called for “the formation of international committees to enter Israeli prisons and examine the conditions of Palestinian detainees”.

The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy, a Gaza-based NGO, said the bill “constitutes an Israeli war crime” and warned of its repercussions.

“The consequences of this fascist measure will be even more violent, dragging the entire region into a new cycle of chaos whose outcome no one can predict,” the rights group added.

Palestinian prisoners’ rights groups – the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS)- described the bill to execute Palestinian prisoners as an “unprecedented act of savagery”.

The groups said in their statement in late September that the latest bill aims to legalise the ongoing killing of prisoners, saying its approval “is no longer surprising in light of the unprecedented level of savagery practised by the occupation system.”

“The occupation has not been content with killing dozens of prisoners and detainees since the war of extermination began. Today, it seeks to entrench the crime of execution by enacting a specific law for it,” the groups said in a joint statement.

“This law is an addition to a repressive legislative system that, for decades, has targeted all aspects of Palestinian life. It is another step to entrench the crime and attempt to legitimise it.”

Following Monday’s approval, Abdullah al-Zaghari, director of the PPS, said Israel’s decision “would amount to a war crime.”

The PPS noted that Israel “has never stopped carrying out extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, whether through deliberate killings during arrest or interrogation, assassinations, or lethal medical negligence.”

What about the life sentence in Israeli prisons?

In Israeli military courts, where Palestinians are tried, a life sentence literally means imprisonment forever.

But what does a life sentence actually mean under Israeli law?

It is far more than a long prison term, it is a sentence designed to crush hope and close every door for the prisoner, except for one: rare and exceptional exchange deals made by the Palestinian resistance.

A life sentence is the harshest penalty under Israeli law. It is an open-ended sentence with no fixed term and no expected release date. In simple terms, it means the prisoner will spend the rest of their life behind bars. Unlike many legal systems worldwide, which define life imprisonment as a set term (for example, 25 years), life sentences in Israeli military courts literally mean life, without parole or reduction for good behavior.

Multiple Life Sentences: Punishment Beyond Punishment

The occupation courts often go even further, imposing multiple life sentences on a single prisoner. Each sentence usually represents a victim of the act for which the prisoner was convicted. This practice sends a clear message that releasing these prisoners is nearly impossible, even in exchange deals.

One prominent example is Palestinian prisoner Abdullah Barghouti, who received 67 life sentences, the highest ever in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Exchange Deals: The Only Hope

For Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences, there is no chance of release through ordinary legal channels. Their only hope rests on exceptional prisoner exchange deals. Most recently, Hamas freed all the living captives held in Gaza and in exchange, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinians, including 250 prisoners who were serving one or more life terms.

This pattern has repeated many times since the first exchange deal in July 1968. In every round of negotiations, the Palestinian resistance prioritizes the release of these prisoners while the Israeli occupation government consistently seeks to avoid meeting this demand.

Palestinian journalist and ex-prisoner Lama Khater wrote, “Legalizing the killing of Palestinian detainees would mean that anyone held in Israel’s prisons could become a target for assassination, not only those accused of carrying out resistance operations.”

She added, “This policy fits the “New Israel,” which no longer needs an excuse to kill and appears to favor extermination, and it turns Palestinian life into a living hell both inside and outside its prisons.”

Withholding Bodies and Signs of Torture

Palestinian prisoner groups estimated that the bodies of 89 Palestinians have been withheld by Israel since 1967, including 78 after the Israeli genocide in Gaza which began in October 2023, in the “bloodiest stage in the history of the prisoner movement.”

As part of the Gaza ceasefire deal with effect on October 10, 270 Palestinian bodies have been released by Israel over the past weeks. The bodies showed clear signs of torture and abuse.

Israeli occupation authorities have been accused of torturing Palestinian detainees. This includes being handcuffed and shackled 24 hours a day, seven days a week – even while sleeping, eating, and using the restroom.

Testimonies also describe regular beatings by guards, extreme overcrowding, humiliation, and inadequate hygiene.

An Israeli reserve soldier exposed lately shocking abuses at Israel’s infamous Sde Teiman military base, describing it as a “sadistic torture site” where dozens of Palestinian detainees from Gaza died under brutal conditions.

The soldier described Sde Teiman as a place where “people enter alive and leave in body bags.” He said the death of detainees was no longer surprising. “The real surprise,” he added, “is if someone survives.”

He stated that Israeli occupation authorities oversee systematic abuse.

According to his account, Palestinian detainees suffered starvation, untreated war wounds, and denial of basic hygiene needs.

“Some urinated and defecated on themselves because they weren’t allowed to use the bathroom,” he said.

In August 2024, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused Israeli occupation authorities of systematically abusing Palestinians in “torture camps”, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault.

Its report, titled “Welcome to Hell”, is based on 55 testimonies from former detainees from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and citizens of Israel. The overwhelming majority of these detainees were held without trial.

According to the Palestine Center for Prisoners Studies, more than half of the Palestinian prisoners who have died since October 2023, were killed primarily as a result of torture and abuse.

Due to the sharp rise in arrests, particularly among Gazans, Israel has opened new detention and interrogation centers operated directly by its military. According to the center, these facilities have become sites of “systematic torture and mistreatment, in clear violation of international law and human rights.”

Many prisoners from Gaza have been subjected to forced disappearance and held incommunicado under inhumane conditions, creating an environment where extrajudicial killings can occur without oversight or accountability, the center added.

In addition to torture, the center documented over 29 deaths resulting from medical negligence. Israel is reported to routinely deny prisoners access to basic medical care, holding them in unsanitary, disease-ridden conditions and delaying or outright refusing necessary treatment for extended periods. In many cases, prisoners are only transferred to hospitals when they are on the brink of death.

Recently-released Palestinians: What They Say?

The freed Palestinians said they were beaten and humiliated, describing the Israeli prisons they were held in as “slaughterhouses”.

Al Jazeera correspondent Ibrahim al-Khalili’s brother, Mohammed, who was held for more than 19 months without charge, described his ordeal as a “big struggle”.

“We were beaten and humiliated. We suffered a lot. But thank God, it’s all over now,” al-Khalili said.

Abdallah Abu Rafe described his release as a “great feeling”.

“We were in a slaughterhouse, not a prison. Unfortunately, we were in a slaughterhouse called the Ofer prison. Many young men are still there. The situation in the Israeli prisons is very difficult. There are no mattresses. They always take the mattresses away. The food situation is difficult. Things are difficult there,” he said.

Another released detainee, Yasin Abu Amra, described conditions in Israeli jails as “very, very bad”.

“In terms of the food, the oppression, and the beatings, everything was bad. There was no food or drink. I hadn’t eaten for four days. They gave me two sweets here, and I ate them,” he said.

Saed Shubair, who was also freed on Monday, said he did not know how to describe his feelings.

“The feeling is indescribable,” he said.
“Seeing the sun without bars is an indescribable feeling. My hands are free from the handcuffs. Freedom is priceless.”

“It’s an indescribable feeling, a new birth,” said Mahdi Ramadan, flanked by his parents after his release from prison.

Palestinian journalist prisoner Shadi Abu Seed gave a harrowing account of life inside an Israeli prison after his release.

“I went hungry for the past two years. I swear to God, they didn’t feed us. They kept us naked. They beat us while we were naked day and night. We were tortured,” Abu Seed said.

“Until our last day in Israeli prison, they cut us and hit us and abused us. We endured every kind of torture, emotional and physical.”

“We couldn’t even sleep. They threatened us with our children. They told me they killed my children. They told us that Gaza was destroyed. I arrived here and found that everything was gone. It looked like the end of the world. Everything is different.”

“He’s been locked up for 24 years,” said a relative of Saber Masalma, who was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison. “He looks like a dead body. But we will bring him back to life,” he said.

According to Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups, every time prisoners are released, the prisoners’ bodies reflect the level of crimes committed against them, including torture that is “unprecedented” in its level after October 7, “starvation crimes, systematic medical crimes, and the infection of a number of them with scabies, in addition to the severe beatings that the prisoners were subjected to before their release.”

Signs of Severe Torture on Bodies

Most of the freed bodies also remain unidentified.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, the bodies, dozens of which have yet to be formally identified, showed “conclusive evidence of field executions and brutal torture”.

It said the bodies showed signs of:

• Hanging and rope marks on the necks of several bodies
• Direct gunfire at close range, “confirming deliberate field executions”
• Hands and feet being bound with plastic restraints
• Eyes being blindfolded
• Being crushed under Israeli tank tracks
• Fractures, burns and deep wounds, indicating “severe physical torture”

“We call for the urgent establishment of an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate these heinous crimes and to hold Israeli leaders accountable for the war crimes committed against our people in the Gaza Strip,” the Office said.

Dr. Ismail Al-Thawabta, Director General of the Government Media Office, said Israeli occupation forces stole organs from the bodies of Palestinian detainees returned to Gaza.

He said dozens of bodies delivered near the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis were found mutilated and missing vital parts, including eyes, limbs, and internal organs.

“When we examined the bodies, we found that large parts were missing, there were half bodies, bodies without heads, without limbs, without eyes, and without internal organs.”

Mohammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza’s Health Ministry, spoke about the “clear signs of torture” found on the bodies of Palestinians that were returned to the Gaza Strip.

“One body shows signs of hanging with a rope still wrapped around the neck, blindfolds around the eyes and bound hands. That martyr was placed as is and sent to us,” Zaqout said from Khan Younis in southern Gaza.