The Hague Initiative Issues Research Paper Warning Against the Legalization of Killing Palestinian Prisoners

The Hague Initiative for Law and Justice has issued a new research paper titled “The Draft Law on the Execution of Palestinian Prisoners: Legalizing Killing Under the Cover of Law,” providing a legal analysis of the Israeli draft legislation that seeks to impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners and highlighting its serious implications for international law and human rights.

The draft law is expected to be submitted to the Israeli Knesset for second and third readings after the National Security Committee completes its final amendments and prepares the final version. If enacted, the law would allow Israeli courts to impose the death penalty by amending Israel’s Penal Law of 1977. The proposed legislation would enable death sentences to be issued through simplified judicial procedures, requiring only a simple majority of judges rather than unanimity, while denying any right to appeal the sentence or seek its review.

The paper, authored by lawyer and legal researcher Wasim Al-Shanti, examines the political and legislative background of the draft law, stressing that it is not an isolated criminal measure but part of an escalating pattern of racially motivated punitive legislation aimed at granting legal legitimacy to policies of killing and grave violations against Palestinian prisoners.

The study concludes that the draft law fundamentally violates international humanitarian law, particularly the Geneva Conventions, and infringes upon the right to life and the core guarantees of a fair trial enshrined in international human rights law. It emphasizes that lowering the threshold for issuing death sentences, prohibiting sentence commutation or substitution, and institutionalizing national-based discrimination in its application all indicate a transformation of the law into a repressive tool detached from any genuine concept of justice.

In its conclusion, the Hague Initiative for Law and Justice calls on international and human rights institutions to treat the draft law as unlawful and to include it within international accountability mechanisms, warning of the grave dangers posed by international silence in the face of the legalization of killing under the guise of law.

The Hague Initiative for Law and Justice

5 January 2026

To read and download the paper:The Draft Law on the Execution of Palestinian Prisoners: Legalizing Killing Under the Guise of Law