Knesset passes law establishing military tribunal to try October 7 perpetrators

MKs vote 93-0 to form special court for captured Hamas-led attackers, proceedings to be filmed and broadcast; bereaved families demand politicians quit, establish state inquiry

The Knesset voted on Monday to pass a law to establish a special military tribunal to try Palestinian terrorists accused of committing atrocities during the October 7, 2023, invasion, with 93 votes in favor and none opposed.

Submitted jointly by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, of the coalition, and Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, of the opposition, the uniquely bipartisan legislation would see the establishment of a special court within the military justice system to try the roughly 300 attackers captured by security forces inside Israel during the invasion and held in detention since.

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.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin called the passage of the legislation “one of the most important moments of the current Knesset. One can feel that we are doing the right thing by finding a way to unite at this moment, even though we are on the eve of elections and despite all the disagreements that exist.”

“This is a historic framework intended to deliver justice and bring to trial the terrorists who carried out the worst massacre in the state’s history,” said Rothman, while Malinovsky proclaimed that “these will be the trials of the modern-day Nazis, and they will go down in the history books.”

Malinovsky dedicated the law to “the murdered victims, the hostages, and their families. In the end, our spirit and our ability to cope with and stand in the face of immense pain – that is what makes us great.”

Between 5,000 and 6,000 Palestinian terrorists, mostly from Hamas, but including other terror groups, invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, by land, air, and sea, 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.

These assailants also abducted 251 people as hostages and took them captive to the Gaza Strip, while also committing a wave of other atrocities, including rape and torture, and documenting the savagery on bodycams the terrorists wore during the attack.

The legislation also stipulates that anyone who is suspected, charged, or convicted of October 7 crimes cannot be released through prisoner release agreements.

However, implementation of the law could be delayed by disagreements between the defense and finance ministries over the projected cost of establishing the special tribunal, a concern which was repeatedly raised while the law was debated on Rothman’s Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

According to Hebrew media reports, the Defense Ministry estimates the initiative would cost roughly NIS 5 billion ($1.72 billion) primarily due to plans for a dedicated judicial compound and a staff of some 400 soldiers and civilian employees.

Finance Ministry officials, however, reportedly argue that the required budget is closer to NIS 2 billion ($689 million) — still costly but far less than the Defense Ministry’s proposal, which they consider excessively expensive at roughly NIS 14 million ($4.8 million) per defendant.

Either way, implementing the new law is expected to be costly, and whether it ultimately moves forward may depend on the defense and finance ministries reaching an agreement.

A large consensus

Efforts to pass the legislation drew uniquely bipartisan support across the coalition and the opposition, as well as from the Attorney General’s Office, which announced in February that the state’s prosecution services agreed to the legislation.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads Rothman’s Religious Zionism party, commended the lawmaker on “advancing this law with rare wall-to-wall consensus, from both the coalition and opposition alike.”

“We will neither forget nor forgive. Those who murdered, raped, and massacred will pay the price,” he said, adding that “we are delivering justice!”

As Smotrich promised retribution, Malinovsky emphasized that Israel is “governed by law” and that those accused will “stand trial in court, according to all the rules, and the judges will hand down their sentences. There will be an orderly legal process, filmed and broadcast.”

Trials will be open to the public and broadcast on a website set up for this purpose.

The tribunal would be staffed by a total of 15 judges who are either qualified to serve on Israel’s Supreme Court or are international jurists whom the justice minister, in consultation with the foreign minister, deems have the appropriate qualifications to sit on such a panel.

An individual case would be heard by three judges — one of whom would be a retired district court judge — while a five-judge panel would hear proceedings involving multiple indictees. Appeals would be heard by all 15 judges.

“The unique scope and severity of the atrocities pose an unprecedented challenge to the Israeli justice system,” the bill’s authors wrote in its explanatory notes on the need for the law. “The investigation of the events is exceptionally complex and extraordinary in scope, due to the large number of crime scenes, the large number of suspects and victims, and the manner of evidence collection, particularly during wartime.”

The establishment of the tribunal, they wrote, is designed to “allow for an efficient and appropriate criminal process, while safeguarding the interests of the victims and the public at large, and at the same time ensuring the conduct of a proper and fair legal proceeding.”

Rights groups have raised concerns about whether those accused of taking part in the October 7 invasion and massacres can receive fair trials after being held for nearly two and a half years without charge.

They have also warned that harsh detention conditions, including allegations of abuse, torture, and severe food restrictions in Israeli prisons since the war began, could call into question the reliability of confessions or testimony obtained in custody, while the scale and horror of the attacks may create intense public and political pressure on judges for convictions.

A law for whom?

While the law ultimately passed with no opposition, the debate leading up to the vote was chaotic. The plenum erupted in shouting ahead of the final vote as a small number of bereaved families watching from the visitors’ gallery repeatedly interrupted Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi for addressing the chamber in Arabic.

As Tibi presented a reservation to the legislation in Arabic — one of Israel’s two official languages and commonly used by Arab lawmakers in the plenum — family members in the visitors’ gallery began yelling at him, with some shouting “shame” and accusing him of supporting terrorism.

“I respect the pain of every bereaved family,” Tibi said, but also that some people are “politically exploiting” their grief.

“I, too, have relatives who were killed in Gaza, including two children. I do not exploit this politically, and I do not seek revenge. I seek to move to a different reality, in which there will be no bereavement for either Israelis or Palestinians,” he said.

At one point, Tibi addressed one of the protesters directly, saying, “You are a guest here. So what if you are a bereaved father? Members of my family were also killed, and I do not behave like you.”

The remarks sparked further outrage in the gallery, and Knesset ushers were forced to remove some of the protesters from the area.

However, relatively few bereaved families appeared to attend the plenum session itself. As lawmakers applauded themselves and dedicated the legislation to those murdered on October 7, there was little comment from organizations representing bereaved relatives or hostage families on the new law.

Organizations representing bereaved relatives and hostage families have largely focused their public advocacy on other demands, including the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the disaster, and for political leaders to take responsibility for the disaster — demands the government has so far resisted.

Rather than attend the plenum, dozens of bereaved family members were at the Knesset earlier in the day, attending faction meetings, meeting with opposition lawmakers, and holding a press conference organized by the October Council, which represents the victims of the October 7 massacre, including bereaved families, former hostages, residents of the Gaza envelope, and the north.

At the event, speakers called on lawmakers to resign and establish a state commission of inquiry.

Former hostage Rom Braslavski called on all members of the Knesset to resign, “take responsibility, and get out of our lives.”

“The blood of everyone murdered on October 7 is on your hands,” he said. “And just before you go, establish the state commission of inquiry that will investigate what exactly happened here, so it never happens again.”

Other speakers included Eyal Eshel, whose daughter Roni Eshel, a surveillance soldier, was killed on October 7, and Michel Illouz, whose son Guy Illouz was killed in captivity.

Council members said their goal in the coming months is to ensure that the October 7 massacre and politicians’ evasion of responsibility for the debacle become the main issue for voters in the upcoming elections set for October 27.

“We, the families, will pursue this truth until our final day, for Guy, for all those murdered, for the hostages, and for the country that can no longer breathe under this government,” said Illouz. “This is the final session of the current Knesset. May we soon be able to say: good riddance.”

Sam Sokol and Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.