Brussels – The Israeli Parliament passed a law last night (30 March) making the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians accused of terrorism. “A serious step backwards from the positions Israel has expressed in the past,” is the comment coming from Brussels. “A further departure by Israel from the framework of values with which it has historically chosen to associate itself“, stated the Council of Europe from Strasbourg. A new rift from Tel Aviv, which once again turns the spotlight on the EU’s inaction, as it has not had the courage to approve even the symbolic economic and political sanctions proposed by the European Commission six months ago.
The bill, sponsored by the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, establishes a blatantly discriminatory principle: that the death penalty is the default sentence not for anyone accused of terrorism, but for Palestinian citizens accused of terrorism. Courts will be able to impose the death penalty without a request from prosecutors and by a simple majority decision. Military courts in the occupied West Bank will also be authorised to hand down death sentences. The last person to be executed in Israel was the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Israel abolished the death penalty for common crimes in 1954.
Leading Israeli human rights organisations have condemned the law as “an act of institutionalised discrimination and racist violence against Palestinians.” The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has stated that it has lodged an appeal against the law with the Israeli Supreme Court, which will be required to review – and potentially overturn – the measure. The extremist minister Ben Gvir, prior to the vote in the Knesset, exclaimed: “From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that the State of Israel will take the life of anyone who takes a life.”
Yesterday, the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement in which they highlighted “the de facto discriminatory character” of the bill, which “would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regard to democratic principles.” The four added: “The rejection of the death penalty is a fundamental value that unites us.” According to the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation based in Strasbourg, “the death penalty is a legal anachronism incompatible with contemporary human-rights standards. Moreover, any application of the death penalty that could be characterised as discriminatory is unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law.”
“The draft law on the death penalty is of great concern to us. It represents a clear step backwards, as well as being a discriminatory law,” a European Commission spokesperson said today. The measures Brussels proposed in September 2025, as part of the review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, “are still on the table,” the spokesperson added. A few days ago, the European External Action Service (EEAS) issued a statement urging Israel to uphold “its commitment to democratic principles, as also reflected in the provisions of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.”
After two years of bombing in Gaza and over 70,000 Palestinian casualties, Brussels had proposed to impose sanctions on two ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government – Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – and to impose tariffs on Israeli goods worth 6 billion euros. This measure would be decidedly “softer” than the partial or total suspension of the Association Agreement binding the two partners, which stipulates, in Article 2, that respect for human rights is a prerequisite for the agreement’s provisions. However, it was severe enough to run aground in the EU Council, where member states are required to approve political sanctions unanimously and economic sanctions by a qualified majority.
The call for action has gained fresh momentum in light of the Knesset’s approval of the death penalty law, particularly from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), an active part of the majority supporting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Israeli authorities must repeal this infamous law, and the Council must act immediately, including suspending the EU-Israel Agreement,” said the group’s president in the European Parliament, Iratxe Garcia Perez, on X. According to Annalisa Corrado, MEP for the Democratic Party, we are facing “a very serious point of no return,” and “the time has come for the European Union to suspend the Association Agreement with Israel and take a clear, consistent stance that lives up to its values”. Her views were echoed by Sandro Ruotolo, who argued that “we cannot continue to maintain normal political and commercial relations with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government whilst fundamental rights are being violated.”
The call for a complete suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement in light of Israel’s human rights violations is also the subject of a citizens’ initiative, registered by the European Commission in November, which has already gathered 580,000 signatures.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
