Israel's Death Penalty Law: Legal Analysis Shows Application to Occupied Territory Would Violate IHL

On April 2, analysts and legal experts continued to examine the implications of Israel's newly passed death penalty law. Al Jazeera and international law scholars emphasized that the law — allowing Israeli courts to sentence Palestinians convicted of terror offenses causing Israeli deaths — would constitute a war crime if applied to residents of the occupied West Bank, as the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits applying the occupying power's criminal law to the occupied population in ways that exceed what is permitted under the law of occupation. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese noted the law was enacted days after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had already stated it would violate international humanitarian law if applied to occupied territory. The West Bank general strike from April 1 continued into the morning of April 2 in several cities. Palestinian Authority officials condemned the law as 'state terrorism.' Simultaneously, Day 34 of the US-Israel war on Iran continued with Israeli air defense active across the country; no major new strikes were reported in the first hours of April 2.