Committee to summon IDF and Shin Bet heads to weigh in on death penalty for terrorists bill

Israel’s military chief of staff and the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency will be summoned to appear before the Knesset’s National Security Committee later this week as lawmakers continue deliberations on a controversial bill that would allow the death penalty for convicted terrorists.

According to a Knesset statement, committee chairman Zvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party told the committee that repeated requests for written or oral input from security officials had gone unanswered.

He said he considered canceling the session because of their absence, but instead announced that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Shin Bet head David Zini would be summoned to present their views on Wednesday ahead of the bill’s second and third readings.

Although the death penalty formally exists in Israeli law, it has only ever been used once, in 1962 — in the case of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.

It is technically allowed in cases of high treason, as well as in certain circumstances under martial law that applies within the army and in the West Bank, but currently requires a unanimous decision from a panel of three judges, and has never been implemented.

Military courts also handed down several death sentences to terrorists and enemy combatants between the 1950s and 1990s, although all were mitigated to life sentences following appeals.