The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament has strongly criticised the Israeli parliament’s approval of a law that would allow the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorist attacks, and is demanding EU sanctions.
The group said it wants the European Union to address the new law alongside settler violence and Israel’s “unlawful imposition of sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank, according to a statement released on Wednesday.
Villy Søvndal, the Greens/EFA rapporteur on the situation in Israel and Palestine, described the measure as a “discriminative death penalty only targeting Palestinians.”
Søvndal called on EU leaders to follow condemnation with action, citing the war in Gaza, Israeli settlements, and violence and destruction in the West Bank.
Call for EU sanctions and agreement suspension
Hannah Neumann, the group’s coordinator on the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said the death penalty bill was “clearly designed to target one group only: Palestinians.”
Neumann stated she welcomed concerns previously expressed by the European Commission, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, and several member states, but said “words are not enough.”
The group said it is urging the Commission and EU countries to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement — a framework governing political and economic relations — and to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, as well as “actors within the violent settler movement.”
