Israel passes law establishing military tribunal for Oct 7 perpetrators

JERUSALEM: Israel's parliament has passed a law establishing a special military tribunal to try Palestinian militants accused of taking part in Hamas's Oct 7, 2023, attacks, under which the death penalty could be handed down. The bill received support from coalition and opposition lawmakers, with 93 voting in favour late on Monday (May 11) and none of the parliament's 120 members voting against. The special court will try attackers captured during or after the Hamas-led onslaught who have been held in detention ever since. It will also try those suspected of holding or abusing hostages in Gaza. According to Israeli media, around 400 suspects are expected to stand trial before the court. Hamas's surprise attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data, making it the deadliest day in Israel's history. Militants also took 251 people hostage on that day, including 44 who were already dead. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has devastated the Gaza Strip and killed more than 72,000 people , according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. The special military court, which will sit in Jerusalem, will have the jurisdiction to try the accused under any law, including offences under the Prevention of Genocide Law, the Penal Code, and the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to the legislation. The public will have access to the hearings, with some portions also broadcast. Under the tribunal, the accused could be convicted of crimes for which the death penalty exists in Israel.  The last person to be executed in Israel was the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann in 1962. The new legislation is separate from a law passed in March that would make the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who are found guilty of carrying out deadly attacks deemed "acts of terrorism" by an Israeli military court. That law, which drew widespread international criticism, does not apply retroactively and has not yet been applied. "SHOW TRIALS" Monday's legislation specifies that no person suspected, accused, or convicted of offences committed during the Oct 7 attacks would be included in prisoner exchange deals. Rights groups have raised concerns about the possibility of "show trials". "Survivors of the Oct 7 attacks and victims' families deserve justice, not vengeance in the form of show trials and mass executions based on confessions extracted through torture," Sari Bashi, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture, said in a statement. Lawmaker Simcha Rothman, who co-sponsored the bill and whose far-right party is part of the governing coalition, called it a "historic framework designed to do justice and bring to trial the terrorists who carried out the worst massacre in the country's history". Yulia Malinovsky, an opposition politician who also sponsored the bill, said there would be "an orderly legal process, recorded and broadcast". "These will be the trials of the modern Nazis, and this will enter the history books. I dedicate this law to all the murdered, the abducted, and their families," she said, according to a statement. Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim slammed the legislation and said "the world must act before it is too late". "This law represents a dangerous escalation and a new crime added to the occupation's record of war crimes and systematic violations against our Palestinian people," he told AFP, warning of "serious repercussions of this racist law".