On January 8, 2017, Chir Hadjadj visited Jerusalem with his classmates from an Israeli army officer course. Around 1:15 p.m., the 23-year-old soldier got out of the bus parked on Hass Promenade, a famous promontory offering a breathtaking panorama of the holy city. At that moment, a Palestinian from the neighboring village of Jabel Moukaber appeared behind the wheel of a truck. He mows down Chir and three other soldiers before being shot. “If this man knew that he risked the death penalty, he might have hesitated before killing my daughter,” sighs Meirav Hadjadj, Chir’s mother. Since then, she has campaigned with her husband for the restoration of the death penalty in Israel. Close to Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of Police and leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, the couple has just obtained a victory: on November 10, the Knesset voted for the reestablishment of capital punishment in Israel.
The text, which still has to go through two readings before Parliament, will require magistrates to automatically apply the death penalty to perpetrators of terrorist attacks against Israelis “with the aim of harming the rebirth of the Jewish people in their land”.
For the Hadjadj, this vote in Parliament stems directly from the trauma of the massacres of October 7, 2023. “Before October 7, people took us for crazy people,” says Meirav. “Now they understand us because every person in this country knows at least one victim of these massacres. And people understand that to stop or at least slow down terrorism, the death penalty remains the only solution,” she believes.
L’exception Eichman
Intended at the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the death penalty was abolished in 1954 after having been applied only once – wrongly, the victim having subsequently been exonerated. In 1961, a Jerusalem court exceptionally sentenced Nazi criminal Adolf Eichman to death under a special law on crimes against humanity. “At that time, even Holocaust survivors were divided on the death penalty,” says Hannah Yablonka, a historian specializing in the Eichman trial. “Many felt that killing Eichman violated the principle of proportionality given the immensity of his crime. And also that it would not bring back the six million Jewish victims of Nazism.” The Prime Minister at the time, David Ben-Gurion, leaned towards the application of the death penalty, invoking the Nuremberg trials after which twelve senior dignitaries of the Nazi regime were sentenced to death. Eichman will be hanged on the 1stis June 1962.
Since then, the debate on the death penalty has resurfaced regularly, particularly during waves of terrorist attacks. The most right-wing Knesset in the country’s history has therefore decided to take the plunge by voting on a transpartisan text. The Russian-speaking party of Avigdor Lieberman, opponent of Benjamin Netanyahu, voted in favor. On the other hand, the Orthodox parties, members of the coalition, voted against in the name of religious principles. On December 9, a Knesset committee examined the methods of execution: hanging, electric chair or lethal injection. “We are sending a very clear message: terrorists deserve to die,” Itamar Ben-Gvir rejoiced before the commission. He wore a pin representing a hanging rope.
Shoot without warning
The reinstatement of the death penalty is part of a radicalization of the repression of the Palestinian armed struggle, as evidenced by the modification of the rules of engagement during confrontations between IDF soldiers and Palestinian fighters. Strictly supervised before October 7, they were relaxed by a military hierarchy regularly accused of endangering soldiers so as not to risk breaking the international laws of war. From now on, at the slightest threat, soldiers can shoot, even if it means exposing their army to vindictiveness. At the end of November, images showing Israeli soldiers shooting dead two Palestinian fighters raising their hands in the air sparked an outcry. The UN denounced an “apparent summary execution” and ordered an investigation.
“Today, the priority is to defend ourselves. We must first shoot. Afterwards, we see if there really was an exaggeration,” says Meïr Ben Hayoun, French-speaking spokesperson for Puissance Juive. According to him, the relaxation of the rules of engagement also results from the trauma of October 7. “That day, helicopter pilots saw dozens of Hamas pick-ups entering Israel and they did not want to shoot. Quite simply because the army’s legal advisers did not give them the green light. Today, that would be unthinkable. We have changed eras,” he notes.
This paradigm shift frightens human rights organizations, with strong opposition to the law on the death penalty and the modification of the rules of engagement. “Numerous studies show that the death penalty does not deter the perpetrators of attacks. This law does not meet a security requirement. It quenches the thirst for revenge of this government and part of the population,” laments Noa Sattah, director of the Israeli center for civil rights. She plans to appeal to the Supreme Court in the event of final adoption of the text.
.
