Israel is preparing to establish special public military tribunals to prosecute alleged participants in the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. Israeli politicians are simultaneously pushing for the death penalty to be applied to those convicted.
The Knesset approved the corresponding bill by an overwhelming majority—93 lawmakers voted in favor, while none opposed it. The vote took place at the opening of parliament’s summer session and marked a rare moment of consensus between the governing coalition and the opposition. Another 27 lawmakers either abstained or did not attend the session.
According to the bill, the special tribunals will be based in Jerusalem, and proceedings are expected to be publicly broadcast. Defendants may face charges including genocide, murder, undermining Israel’s sovereignty, waging war, and other terrorism-related crimes.
Critics of the initiative inside Israel described the planned courts as “show trials.” One of the bill’s authors, Yulia Malinovsky of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, compared the future proceedings to the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, whom Israel prosecuted and executed in 1961.
“These are trials of modern-day Nazis,” Malinovsky told the Knesset. According to her, the proceedings “will enter the history books.”
During the Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. Israeli authorities describe it as the greatest loss of life in the country’s history and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Following the attack, Israeli forces detained several hundred Hamas militants, including members of the Nukhba unit, regarded as an elite formation involved in the assault. All are currently being held in Israeli custody.
In the subsequent Israeli military operation in Gaza, more than 70,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian figures. After a U.S.-backed ceasefire that took effect in October, the intensity of combat decreased significantly, though negotiations over a long-term settlement remain effectively frozen.
Israel’s military court system has long faced criticism over its extremely high conviction rates in cases involving Palestinians, as well as the practice of withholding parts of the evidence on national security grounds.
The cases are expected to be heard by panels of three judges—current or former district judges nominated by the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and formally appointed by the country’s president.
An armed militant at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel, where more than 250 people were killed during the Hamas attack in October 2023.
The left-wing Israeli human rights group Public Committee Against Torture said the creation of special tribunals represents a departure “from standards of evidence and procedural safeguards” and could “open the door to the execution of dozens or even hundreds of people.”
In a statement, the organization said survivors of the October 7 attack and families of those killed “deserve justice, not revenge in the form of show trials and death sentences based on confessions obtained under torture.”
At the same time, the Israeli public group Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes released a 300-page investigation into sexual violence during and after the Hamas attack. The document describes numerous and systematic cases of rape, gang rape, sexualized violence, and mutilation, including crimes committed against Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Eichmann remains the last person executed in Israel. The country’s laws allow capital punishment for crimes such as treason and genocide. In March, the Knesset also approved a controversial bill introducing the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis in terrorist attacks. The measure does not apply to Israeli Jews who kill Palestinians.
Right-wing Israeli politicians, including Religious Zionism lawmaker Simcha Rothman, described the new legislation as the “Nukhba Law.” According to Rothman, the bill is intended to send “a clear and unequivocal message to Israel’s enemies.”
“Those who carried out mass murder, raped and abducted Israeli citizens will stand trial and pay the highest price,” he wrote on X.