Chairman of the Knesset Constitution Committee MK Simcha Rothman Religious Zionism) and MK Yulia Malinovski (Israel Beitenu) are promoting a private bill according to which all terrorists suspected of having participated in the October 7 atrocities will be defined as illegal combatants and imprisoned indefinitely, contrary to the current law, Reshet Bet Radio reported Thursday morning.
According to the Rothman-Malinovsky bill, a special court will hear the case of terrorists who are deemed eligible to be tried for the crime of genocide, and thus those terrorists would not be tried according to Israeli criminal law – meaning the evidence in their cases would be examined according to special legal procedures for the crime of genocide.
The two MKs announced that they would introduce the bill on the first day of the winter session in late October.
AG Gali Baharav-Miara was trusted in December 2023 with promoting the genocide court together with a special constitutional sub-committee, but she was so busy letting anarchists off the hook in violent demonstrations and torpedoing Ben Gvir’s police appointments that since then the sub-committee held only two sessions (in ten months!).
MK Malinovsky told Reshet Bet that a year after the catastrophe, it’s time to “find a solution and bring the damned terrorists to justice and do justice to the victims and their families.”
So far, no special court has been established for the trials of the October 7 terrorists, and no new course has been established to allow their prosecution. The big problem is that should they be tried according to Israel’s criminal rules of evidence, many of them would be able to establish reasonable doubt regarding their actions.
According to MK Rothman, the proposed bill establishes an expert court for ruling on genocide, as opposed to a court with the authority to judge additional offenses committed as part of the genocide. According to him, with an amendment to the current law, it would be possible to keep any suspected terrorist in prison after a short administrative investigation.
By being declared illegal combatants, the Hamas detainees would lose their right to criminal prosecution.