The Israeli parliament has overwhelmingly approved the law establishing a special military court to investigate the crimes of the October 7, 2023, massacre perpetrated by Hamas. It will try approximately 300 suspected terrorists captured by Israeli security forces between October 7 and 10, 2023, and held since then, and will examine the crimes committed against the more than 250 Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

"The purpose of this law is to regulate the criminal prosecution of perpetrators of acts of hostility, murder, sexual crimes, kidnapping, and looting committed by the terrorist organization Hamas and its allies in the context of the murderous, organized, and deliberate attack that began on October 7, 2023, acts that constitute crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes," reads the introduction to the bill, jointly introduced by coalition and opposition parliamentarians. It has found rare cross-party support—including among Labour MPs—just as the political crisis could lead to early elections in the country.

The Arab parties in the Knesset boycotted the vote, which comes as an independent Israeli investigative commission, after two years of work, found "systematic and widespread" sexual violence committed by Hamas and its allies, both during the attack and against the hostages taken to Gaza. The law establishes the possibility of imposing the death penalty, but reserves discretion to the Defense Minister.

"This measure was introduced as a compromise to distance ourselves from the death penalty law recently approved by Minister Ben Gvir," Professor Amichai Cohen, who followed the process for the Israel Democracy Institute, explained to ANSA. According to the provision, defendants will be defended on behalf of the Jewish state by Israeli or Palestinian lawyers—but not by the State Attorney's Office, which has requested to be relieved of its duties. The legal framework established by the law is reminiscent of the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, the only case in which the death penalty was ever applied in Israel, in 1962, for which a specific law was enacted.

As in the Eichmann case, the "Nukhba trials"—as they are known among Israelis, referring to the elite Hamas unit that led the October 7 invasion—will be broadcast to the general public, barring exceptions related to the victims' privacy or military censorship. For security and logistical reasons, not all defendants will be physically present in court for the entire duration of the hearings, so a videoconference is planned. These reasons indicate that it will be months before the trials—which are expected to last several years—open. The defendants will presumably be grouped according to the different areas attacked during the October 7 massacre, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed.

According to Cohen, the key aspect of the law is its determination that, despite the military framework, ordinary criminal law will be applied and that most judges will be civilians, including, for appeals, retired Supreme Court justices. "This law expresses Israel's attempt to assert that, despite the wound of the most tragic attack in its history, it intends to respond with legal means in accordance with the rule of law," Cohen says. Several Israeli human rights organizations remain critical, highlighting the risk of trials based on confessions that may have been obtained through coercion. Jurist Mordechai Kremnitzer, in an op-ed in Haaretz, emphasizes that these trials will be a test for the Israeli judicial system, which will have to demonstrate that it applies "a system of accusation whose mission is to administer justice, not vengeance."

(Unioneonline)

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