Lawmakers feted yesterday May 11, the passage of a bill establishing a special military tribunal for trying Palestinian terrorists accused of committing atrocities during the October 7, 2023, invasion, saying it would allow for a trial of historic significance, likening it to the “Eichmann trial.” A key aspect of the trials will be that they are public and will be broadcast on a website set up for this purpose.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the main promoter of the law, has no doubts, the new legislation “ensures not only that justice is served, but also that the historical record of the horrific massacre — of the victims, the hostages, and those responsible — will endure for generations.”

Security forces captured approximately 300 of the invaders inside Israel following the attacks, and have held them in various detention centers since, with Israeli law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies deliberating over the last two and a half years on how best to put them on trial.

Under the legislation, the tribunal will be able to charge the assailants with all relevant crimes, including genocide under the terms of Israel’s 1950 Law for the Prevention of Genocide, harming Israeli sovereignty, causing war, assisting an enemy during a time of war, and terror charges under Israel’s 2016 law for combating terrorism.

Those convicted of genocide charges would be liable for the death penalty. It is a clear message to Israel’s enemies. The tribunals enabled by the legislation will constitute a modern Eichmann trial.  

Eichmann, seen as one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, was captured by Israeli agents in Argentina and brought to Israel, where he was tried and eventually executed. The trial was widely seen as having helped Israelis come to terms with the horrors of the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. It remains one of only two times that Israel has carried out the death penalty.

Because laws cannot be applied retroactively, the bill was based on legislation and offenses that already existed in the statute book on October 7. Each case must be heard by a panel of three judges, in which the chief presiding judge would be a retired district court judge sitting alongside two other judges who are qualified to serve as district court judges and have expertise in criminal law.

Appeals could be made within the tribunal system to an appeals bench, which would consist of a chief presiding judge who is either a retired Supreme Court judge, a retired district court president, or the president of a military appeals court. Alongside that judge would sit two retired district court judges.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinian terrorists, mostly from Hamas, but including other terror groups, invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, at multiple points on the Israel-Gaza border, and carried out a series of massacres in which some 1,200 people were killed, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

The assailants also abducted 251 people as hostages and took them captive to the Gaza Strip, while also committing a wave of rape and torture, and documenting the savagery on bodycams they wore during the genocide.