Knesset passes law to use PA funds to pay for Oct. 7 terrorists’ legal fees
Legislation follows outrage by bereaved parents, right-wing politicians over prospect of taxpayers covering expenses of defense
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The Knesset on Wednesday night gave final approval to a law prohibiting the state from paying for the legal representation of illegal combatants captured on or following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.
According to the text of the bill, which passed its third reading 26-4, the legal bills for anyone suspected or accused of terrorism tied to October 7 and the ongoing war will be paid from Palestinian Authority tax funds held by Israel, rather than from state coffers.
Bereaved parents and right-wing politicians had objected to the state funding the legal defense of members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force.
Nukhba terrorists spearheaded the October 7 assault on southern Israel, which saw some 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage amid numerous acts of brutality.
During a hearing on the bill at the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee in July, several parents objected to the notion of paying for the defense of those who had murdered their children, decrying it as a “deliberate evil” and “a shame for the people of Israel.”
Their objections came after both Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich harshly condemned the Israel Courts Administration over its request for funding for legal representation for captured combatants suspected of carrying out the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel.
Since the Public Defender’s Office had refused to represent the approximately 2,000 suspected terrorists caught inside Israel or in Gaza since October 7, the courts ordered that they be afforded private counsel in accordance with Israeli law, which also stipulates that funding for such legal representation come from the state.
In a statement to the press at the time, Levin said that “the Justice Ministry will not finance [this]. The Public Defender’s Office will not represent the Nukhba terrorists.”
Smotrich said, “Israeli citizens will not fund the legal defense for such disgusting enemies.”
He also noted that the current economic conditions amid the war meant the state was scraping together funds for various societal needs while cutting budgets for many pressing matters.
While those captured by Israel have yet to be charged, some have appeared before courts, either physically or by video link, to deal with requests by the state to extend their detention.
Speaking with The Times of Israel in October, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, the bill’s sponsor and the chairman of the Constitution Committee, said that in addition to working to prevent Israeli tax funds from being spent on the defense of Hamas terrorists, he was also concerned with finding ways “to actually prosecute them.”
Testifying before the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality a year to the day after the attack, a representative of the State Attorney’s Office told lawmakers that no indictments had yet been brought against members of the Nukhba force.
Palestinian terrorists caught during the course of the war are defined as unlawful combatants under the 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law for holding terrorists and combatants from terror groups fighting Israel, and are not entitled to “prisoner of war” status under international humanitarian law, since they are not members of the legal armed forces of a sovereign state.
Some of the possible charges against the operatives held by Israel include assisting an enemy in war, acts of mass terrorism, murder with exceptional cruelty, murder as a member of a terror organization and rape as an act of terror.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
