The facility will be used to hang convicted “terrorists” under a controversial new law and will include viewing booths, according to Itamar Ben-Gvir
Israel is building an execution facility for Palestinian prisoners sentenced to death on terrorism charges, ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has announced. Apart from an execution chamber, the facility will house viewing booths where “crime victims” and their families can witness hangings – an option “customary in many countries,” Ben-Gvir mentioned while presenting the facility on Tuesday.
The complex will be used to hang convicted “terrorists” under the recently approved Death Penalty for Terrorists Law. The Knesset passed the legislation, championed by Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, in March. It mandates death penalty for those convicted of deadly terrorist attacks aimed at “ending Israel’s existence” – a provision critics say effectively exempts Jewish Israelis, making the law applicable almost exclusively to Palestinians. Executions must be carried out within 90 days of sentencing, with no right of appeal.
The execution facility’s exact location has not been disclosed beyond that it is housed in a newly built death-row wing at a prison in central Israel. In partly blurred video footage filmed at the site, a beaming Ben-Gvir proudly showcases the construction site, framing it as the fulfillment of promises to his supporters.
“We are making history. Terrorists deserve only one thing – death by hanging,” the minister stated. “I took office promising to stop the ‘summer camps’ in the Prison Service. This has been fully implemented. I promised to legislate a death penalty law for terrorists. This has been carried out. And now the death row and hanging facility are also starting to take shape.”
Ben Gvir is known for inflammatory rhetoric toward Palestinians and has been sanctioned by multiple countries for repeatedly inciting violence against them.
He famously boasted that he would ensure “the terrorists [in prison] receive the minimum of the minimum” in food and argued last year that “there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian people.’” A leading advocate of the execution law, the minister and his party members wore noose-shaped lapel pins for months, while his 50th birthday cake in May also featured a noose.
‘Deeply discriminatory’ law
The death penalty law has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and legal campaigners, including in Israel, over discrimination, due process, and potential violations of international and Israeli law. UN human rights experts have warned that hanging in particular is incompatible with the absolute prohibition on torture, while Israeli rights group B’Tselem argued that the highly visual method contributes to the “dehumanization” of Palestinians.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called it “deeply discriminatory” and an egregious violation of international law. Israeli lawmakers and rights groups, including Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – recently petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the law as unconstitutional.
Israel previously permitted capital punishment only in exceptional cases, including treason and Nazi-era war crimes. Only two people have been executed since the state’s creation: an Israeli army officer for treason in 1948 and Nazi Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in 1962. No Palestinian prisoners have been sentenced to death since the new law was approved.
Israel currently holds around 9,400 Palestinian prisoners, including nearly 100 women and more than 370 minors, according to media reports citing the Palestinian Prisoner Society. Rights groups have repeatedly reported mistreatment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, with former detainees and advocacy organizations alleging abuse, torture, starvation, physical and psychological harm, sexual violence, and denial of medical treatment. Israel is also reportedly holding the bodies of more than 100 Palestinians who died in its custody.
Meanwhile, reports state the Israeli military continues near-daily raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank and Gaza, ostensibly targeting Hamas militants and their supporters. Meanwhile, as Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and demolitions of homes belonging to relatives of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis continue, the UN warned last week that the humanitarian and security situation in the region had reached a critical “breaking point.”
