Israel’s Death Penalty Law and the Collapse of International Protection for Children
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, has adopted the first in what threatens to be a series of laws facilitating the use of the death penalty, in a public display of cruelty, discrimination and utter contempt for human rights. It applies only to Palestinians. Israeli Prison Camps are to become Execution Centres. Nuzhat Uthmani explores the moral and legal consequences.
On Monday 30 March 2026, the Israeli Knesset passed a law mandating the death penalty, by hanging, for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. Executions are to be carried out within 90 days of sentencing. There is no right of appeal. There is no provision for clemency. And there is no age exemption for children.
Let that sit with you for a moment. No exemption for children.
Israel’s military courts, the courts that will administer this law, set the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 12 years old (DCIP, 2025). Palestinian children as young as 12 are already being tried in these courts, already being convicted at a rate of 96% (B’Tselem, 2025; DCIP, 2025; AFSC, 2026), already signing confessions in Hebrew, a language many of them cannot read (DCIP, 2025). Now, the state that presides over this system has granted itself the power to execute those its courts convict. The law does not say “adults only.” It does not say “over 18.” It simply says Palestinians.
The children already inside the system
As of 31 December 2025, 351 Palestinian children were detained in Israeli prisons. Of those, 51%, the highest proportion ever recorded, were held under what Israel calls administrative detention: imprisonment without charge, without trial, renewable every six months, indefinitely. Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), which has monitored these figures since 2008, described both the number and the proportion as records (DCIP, 2026).
These children have reported beatings, solitary confinement, denial of medical care, and electrical shocks. 94% were interrogated without a family member present. 89% were not told the reason for their arrest (DCIP, 2025). In March 2025, 17-year-old Walid Ahmad died inside Megiddo prison. His autopsy revealed extreme muscle wasting, dehydration, untreated infections, and scabies, the first documented death of a Palestinian child in Israeli detention (DCIP, 2025; AFSC, 2026). Save the Children, which has documented these conditions for years, has stated that Palestinian children are the only children in the world systematically tried in military courts (Save the Children, 2023).
This is the system into which the death penalty has now been introduced.
The genuine risk to children
Some will argue that the law targets only those convicted of murder, that few children could realistically fall into that category. This misunderstands how Israel’s military legal system functions in practice.
The law applies to killings designated as “terrorist acts” under Israel’s counter-terrorism legislation, a framework so broad that children have faced terrorism charges for acts committed during protests (TRT World, 2025; UN Special Procedures, 2025). Stone-throwing, the most common charge against Palestinian children, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years under military law (Al Jazeera, 2025).
More critically, conviction in these courts does not resemble what most people understand as a fair trial. The 96% conviction rate is not a product of overwhelming evidence (B’Tselem, 2025; DCIP, 2025; AFSC, 2026). It is a product of a system in which children are routinely interrogated without legal counsel, in which confessions are obtained under duress, and in which, as B’Tselem has stated publicly, “many convictions are based on confessions obtained through pressure and torture” (B’Tselem, 2025; DCIP, 2025; AFSC, 2026). Amnesty International has described the new law as granting Israel “carte blanche to execute Palestinians while stripping away the most basic fair-trial safeguards” (Amnesty International, 2026).
A child can be arrested at midnight, interrogated alone, sign a confession in a language they cannot read, be convicted in a military court, and, now under this new law, face execution within 90 days. The law does not prevent this. It enables it.
The UNCRC: signed, ratified, and ignored
Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. The Convention could not be clearer: Article 37(a) explicitly prohibits the death penalty for offences committed by persons under 18. Article 37(b) states that detention of children must be a last resort. Article 40 guarantees fair trial rights for every child in conflict with the law. Israel’s sustained response to these obligations has been to declare that the UNCRC does not apply to children in the occupied territories, a position the UN and international legal consensus firmly rejects (TRT World, 2025; UN Special Procedures, 2025).
The UN Human Rights Office has called on Israel to “immediately repeal the discriminatory death penalty law,” stating its implementation would “violate international law’s prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment” and further entrenches what it describes as apartheid (Al Jazeera, 2026; UN Human Rights Office, 2026). The Council of Europe Secretary-General called the law’s passage “a serious regression” (Council of Europe, 2026). Four European foreign ministers, including the UK’s, urged Israel to abandon it before the vote (Times of Israel, 2026; PBS NewsHour, 2026). It passed anyway.
This is where Scotland’s position becomes not just relevant, but morally urgent.
In January 2024, Scotland became the first country in the United Kingdom, and the first devolved nation in the world, to directly incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law through the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (Scottish Government, 2024). The Bill was passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament. Twice. That is not a technicality. It is a statement of values, a declaration that in Scotland, children’s rights are not aspirational rhetoric but legal reality, enforceable in our courts, binding on our public authorities.
That commitment is hollow if it falls silent when Palestinian children face execution under a military court system that has never met basic international standards of justice. Scotland cannot legislate children’s rights into its own law and then look away when those same rights are systematically and openly violated elsewhere. The moral authority that comes with being a world first in child rights incorporation carries with it a responsibility to speak, loudly, and without equivocation.
The Scottish Government must use every platform available to it to call out this law as a violation of international human rights standards. It must make representations to Westminster demanding that the UK Government go further than urging, and begin attaching meaningful conditions to its relationship with Israel. Urging is not accountability.
This piece is written from one position only: that children’s rights must be protected universally, without exception, without hierarchy, and without political convenience. If that principle means anything, it must mean something here.
Children’s rights are the foundation of everything for all of us
Children are the future of every society, every community, every nation on earth. How we treat the most vulnerable among us, those with no power, no vote, no army, no lobby, is the clearest measure of what our values actually are, as distinct from what we say they are.
The international frameworks built after the horrors of the Second World War, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, were constructed precisely because humanity had witnessed what happens when states are permitted to decide for themselves which lives have value and which don’t. Those frameworks are imperfect. But they represent the collective determination that certain things must never happen again.
We are watching those frameworks collapse in real time. The death penalty law passed in Israel on Monday is not an isolated event. It is one moment in a pattern of international law being openly disregarded, by multiple states, with diminishing consequence. When the United States responds to the passing of this law by stating it “respects Israel’s sovereign right to determine its own laws,” it signals not neutrality but the abandonment of the architecture of protection that the international community spent decades constructing (Times of Israel, 2026; PBS NewsHour, 2026).
That the protection of children from execution, from torture, from imprisonment without trial, must be argued for in 2026, that we are here, making this case, citing these facts, counting these children, is itself the indictment. It should not need to be said. It is the most basic thing. And the fact that it does need to be said, urgently, in response to a law passed by a democratic parliament just yesterday, tells us everything we need to know about the reality we are living in.
Children’s rights are not a political position. They are a precondition for the future of humanity. Scotland has put that in law. Now it must mean it.
Sources
B’Tselem, Statistics on Palestinian Minors in Israeli Custody https://www.btselem.org/statistics/minors_in_custody
Council of Europe, Statement by Secretary General Alain Berset on Israel’s Death Penalty Law (30 March 2026) https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/secretary-general-alain-berset-urges-israel-to-abandon-plans-to-expand-the-death-penalty
DCIP, No Safe Place: The Starvation, Torture and Killing of Palestinian Children in 2025 https://www.dci-palestine.org/no_safe_place_starvation_torture_and_the_killing_of_palestinian_children_in_2025
DCIP, More Than Half of Palestinian Child Detainees Have No Charges https://www.dci-palestine.org/more_than_half_of_palestinian_child_detainees_have_no_charges
DCIP, Military Detention https://www.dci-palestine.org/military_detention
DCIP, 17-Year-Old Palestinian Child Dies in Israeli Prison https://www.dci-palestine.org/17_year_old_palestinian_child_dies_in_israeli_prison_in_unclear_circumstances
AFSC, Justice for Shadi Khoury and All Palestinian Children https://afsc.org/newsroom/justice-shadi-khoury-and-all-palestinian-children
Save the Children, Stripped, Beaten and Blindfolded: New Research Reveals Ongoing Violence and Abuse of Palestinian Children Detained by Israeli Military https://www.savethechildren.net/news/stripped-beaten-and-blindfolded-new-research-reveals-ongoing-violence-and-abuse-palestinian
TRT World, UN Slams Israel’s New Law Allowing Life Sentences for Palestinian Children https://trtworld.com/article/76d1eaa5412a
Al Jazeera, Israel Holding More Than Half of Palestinian Child Detainees Without Charge https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/18/israel-holding-more-than-half-of-palestinian-child-detainees-without-charge
Al Jazeera, Dangerous Escalation: World Reacts to Israel Passing Death Penalty Law https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/30/dangerous-escalation-world-reacts-to-israel-passing-death-penalty-law
Al Jazeera, Why Are There So Many Palestinian Children in Israeli Prisons? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/why-are-there-so-many-palestinian-children-in-israeli-prisons
Amnesty International, Israel/OPT: Newly Adopted Death Penalty Law Must Be Repealed https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/israel-opt-newly-adopted-death-penalty-law-must-be-repealed/
Times of Israel, Knesset Passes Death Penalty Law for Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Acts of Terror https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-passes-death-penalty-law-for-palestinians-convicted-of-deadly-acts-of-terror/
PBS NewsHour, Israel’s Parliament Approves Death Penalty for Palestinians Convicted of Murdering Israelis https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israels-parliament-approves-death-penalty-for-palestinians-convicted-of-murdering-israelis
Scottish Government, UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024: Statutory Guidance https://www.gov.scot/publications/statutory-guidance-part-2-uncrc-incorporation-scotland-act-2024/pages/3/
This is a new evil, a new horror, a new depth of depravity, an act of self-delegitimisation by the Israeli regime, but also a continuation of the undermining of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by virtually the only nation never to ratify it, Israel’s muscle, the USA (where some states still force children to marry their rapists, who once executed minors and may do again, where child abusers seem to have enjoyed many privileges and immunities, and which violates international norms on the treatment of children to this day).
https://indicators.ohchr.org/
NATO, the World Evil, was always emphatically at war with children, women and the living planet. Israel worships a god of genocide which essentially set the tone for total war against civilian populations. Western civilization draws its military tradition from the massacring and enslaving Romans and Greeks. All the signs are that there are even worse to come.
Yes Israel has murdered over 70.000 Innocent Civilians in Gaza including over 20.000 Innocent Children Hundreds of thousands of civilians and children injured and disabled, Netanyahu who has an ICC International Warrant out for his arrest for war crimes and no country will arrest him, Israel has bombed Hospitals, Schools and Refugee camps in Gaze, killed hundreds of medical staff and doctors, they have killed over 200 journalists in Gaza in the last 30 months and the world is not interested, Netanyahu will not allow western Journalists into Gaza so they can hide the Genocide they are doing in Gaza, they have destroyed 90% of the buildings in Gaza, they are restricting food supplies to Gaza, they have shortages of drinking water, no sanitation and the few Hospitals that have some parts still operating are struggling to treat people without the proper equipment and medication, The western Gutter Press and Gutter Television is not reporting on the continuing Genocide in Gaza but they continually tell us about any deaths in Ukrain by Russia, Russia is evil but Israel is great, The whole world is frightened of Israel and Netanyahu, if they tell the truth about Israel and what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza then he shouts ANTISEMITISM, ANTISENITISM, ANTISEMITISM and that frightens them.
The Only person that was not frightened of the Jews was Hitler.
Now we see the continuing Genocide in Gaza, the problem with the alleged Terrorism that Netanyahu keeps telling us about, that problems has arisen because in 1948 Israel had only 10% of Palestine, but since then they have been building hundreds of illega Israeli settlements in Palestine and Gaza as detailed by the ICC they have demolishied Palestine homes, businesses and orchyards, and today Israel occupies 90% of Palestine, they are determined to destroy Palestine and Gaza and kill every Palestine Citizens, and the Corrupt world is sitting back doing and saying nothing.
And now Israel has persuaded the US to attack Iran, Netanyahu has said for the last 32 years that Israel is only weeks away from having a Nuclear weapon, you can see all his speeches on the Internet over that 32 years, he just lied, and the stupid world believed him, The US started the conflict with Iran in 1953, The CIA has admitted it was involved in the overthrowing of the democratically elected government in Iran in 1953 and they have admitted that this was undemocratic, Then the US shot down a Iranian civil airlier with 290 woman and children on it in 1988 and the commander of the ship that shot it down got a commendation for that, Then you will see on the Internet Donald Trump saying in 1987 that the US should invade Iran and take its oil, Iran does not have Nuclear weapons, and is not developing then, the CIA has stated that but the Nutter and Mental Retard Trump does not believe his own security services but he believes what his BUM BOY Netanyahu tells him. We would not have had any hostility with these countries if Israel had not destroyed Palestine in the last 78 years, and nobody is investigating Israeli Nuclear sites and Bombs that the Israeli whistle blower told us about over 35 years ago. So Israel can have Nuclear Bombs but Iran cannot.
“The Only person that was not frightened of the Jews was Hitler.” Eh??
The International Terrorist and mental retard Trump Interview about taking Iran Oil in 1987
Who is the whistleblower for Israel nuclear weapons?
Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower. American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era”. In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for “his courage and self-sacrifice in revealing the extent of Israel’s nuclear weapons program”.
Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which has continued since 1967 and is the longest military occupation in modern history,[1] has become illegal under international law. This illegality encompasses the West Bank, including Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, as well as the blockaded Gaza Strip, which remains to be considered occupied under international law despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement. Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied West Bank, including the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements, have amounted to de facto annexation that is illegal under international law.
And the Corrupt Western governments does not do or say anything about this, and nothing about the Illegal war by the US in Vietnam, Iraq on the lies of WMD, the War in Libya and Afghanistan, then the arrack on Venezuela and now Iran, The US international Terrorists but plenty said about Russia invading Ukraine because the EU and the US were moving Nuckear Weapons into Ukraine so Russia was not having that, because the US would not allow Russian Nuclear weapons in Cuba in the early 1960s, and Zelensky killed over 14.000 Russian speaking Ukranian citizens in 2014, so Russia had a right to invade Ukraine.
Ron Paul has consistently opposed U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, arguing that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to intervene. He holds a non-interventionist view, blaming the United States and NATO for provoking Russia through expansionist policies and interference in Ukrainian politics
Your stream of rubbish (“The only person that was not frightened of the Jews was Hitler”, “Zelensky killed over 14.000 Russian speaking Ukranian citizens in 2014, so Russia had a right to invade Ukraine”…) does deep disservice to the focus of the article.
To clear , 12,year old children will have less legal protection on a capital charge in the Jewish State than Adolf Eichmann.
How ironic that a perpetrator of genocide of Jews should receive fairer process than juvenile resisters of genocide by the Jewish State.