Eight Muslim-majority countries have “strongly condemned” a new Israeli law which makes death by hanging a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks.
Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, in a joint statement, also highlighted the “urgent need to refrain from measures” that risk further inflaming tensions on the ground.
The law, passed by Israel’s parliament on Monday and fulfilling a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies, also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges.
The measure has been harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the legislation is a breach of international law and a doomed bid to intimidate Palestinians.
Protesters protest outside the entrance of Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. Pic: Reuters
Palestinians on Tuesday held sit-ins and marches in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the territory where the new law is most sweeping.
The legislation orders West Bank military courts – which try only Palestinians – to make the death penalty the default sentence for those convicted of murdering Israelis, except in special circumstances.
The UK, Germany, France and Italy said the move was “de facto discriminatory” and “Israel risks undermining its commitments to democratic principles”.
A joint statement called the death penalty “an inhumane and degrading form of punishment without any deterrent effect”.
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Palestinians protest the death penalty law in the Gaza Strip. Pics: Reuters
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper posted the statement on X on Tuesday, adding: “The death penalty is wrong and we oppose it around the world.”
“It’s another step towards apartheid. The world cannot stay silent,” Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of the most vocal supporters of Palestinians among Western leaders, wrote on X.
The Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs said the law “constitutes a decision to carry out institutionalised extrajudicial killings according to racist standards”.
Opponents of the bill, under which executions should be carried out within 90 days of sentencing, said it was racist, draconian and unlikely to deter attacks by Palestinian militants.
Critics include Israelis and Palestinians, international rights groups and the UN, some of whom fear the death penalty could be applied solely to Palestinians convicted of murdering Jewish citizens of Israel.
The sentence will be applied by a military court to anyone convicted of murdering an Israeli “as an act of terror”.
Such courts try only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens.
Israel’s courts, which try Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, can choose between life imprisonment or the death penalty in cases of murder aiming to harm Israeli citizens and residents or “with the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel”.
The law will not apply retroactively to any prisoners Israel currently holds, including the Hamas-led militants who launched October 7 attack in 2023, triggering the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The Taliban government in neighbouring Afghanistan called the legislation a “continuation of oppression”, urging “international organisations and influential countries to take immediate and practical steps to prevent such actions”.
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