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Eight Muslim-majority countries “strongly condemned” Israel’s new law making death by hanging the standard punishment 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 actions” that risk further escalating tensions.
Law, passed by Israel’s parliament on Monday and fulfilling a promise by right-wing ally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it also gave Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges.
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The act was strongly condemned by the international community and human rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the law was a violation of international law and an attempt to intimidate Palestinians.
Demonstrators protest outside the entrance to the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. Photo: Reuters
Palestinians on Tuesday held sit-ins and demonstrations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the region where the new law has been most widely implemented.
The law orders West Bank military courts – which only try Palestinians – to make the death penalty the standard punishment for those convicted of killing Israelis, except in special circumstances.
Britain, Germany, France and Italy said the move was “de facto discriminatory” and “Israel risks undermining its commitment to democratic principles”.
The joint statement called the death penalty “a form of punishment that is inhumane and degrades human dignity without providing a deterrent effect”.
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Palestinians protest the death penalty law in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters
British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper posted the statement on X on Tuesday, adding: “The death penalty is wrong and we oppose it across the world.”
“This is another step towards apartheid. The world cannot remain silent,” wrote Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of the most vocal supporters of Palestine among Western leaders, on X.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the law “constitutes a decision to carry out extrajudicial killings instituted in accordance with racist standards”.
Opponents of the bill, which requires executions to take place within 90 days of sentence, say it is racist, cruel and unlikely to deter attacks by Palestinian militants.
His critics include Israelis and Palestinians, international human rights groups and the United Nations, some of whom fear the death penalty will only be applied to Palestinians convicted of killing Jews in Israel.
The punishment will be applied by a military court to anyone found to have killed Israeli citizens “as an act of terror.”
Such courts only try Palestinians in the West Bank, who are not Israeli citizens.
Israeli courts, which try Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, can choose between life imprisonment or the death penalty in cases of murder aimed at harming Israeli citizens and residents or “with the intention of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel”.
The law will not apply retroactively to any prisoners currently held by Israel, including the Hamas-led militants who launched the attack on October 7, 2023, which sparked the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan called the law a “continuation of oppression”, and urged “international organizations and influential countries to take immediate and practical steps to prevent such actions”.
