The Israeli parliament has advanced a Bill that would mandate the death penalty for Palestinian militants convicted of killing Israeli citizens, with some lawmakers believing it would prevent future prisoner-release deals. “This is how we fight terror; this is how we create deterrence,” he said in a statement after the initial vote held late on Monday. Opposition leader Yair Lapid was quoted by Israeli media as saying he would not vote in favour of the Bill. Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954, and the only person executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, in 1962. Amnesty International said in a statement that a Bill mandating the death penalty for “nationally motivated” murders targeting Israel or the Jewish people would entrench systemic discrimination against Palestinians.
