Demand Grows Among Ministers for Terrorist Death Penalty

While the government has not yet decided on whether or not to remove body scanners and metal detectors from the entrance to Har HaBayis, ministers were in an angry mood at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. Ministers called for the death penalty to be imposed on Omar Abd al-Abed, the 19-year-old terrorist who murdered three Israelis Friday night.

According to Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the IDF has all the legal tools needed to execute terrorists. “There is no need for new legislation,” he wrote in a social media post. “The law to execute terrorists already exists in the code of military law that Yehudah and Shomron is governed under. I call on the IDF Prosecutor’s Office to immediately impose a death sentence on the murderer of the Salomon family.”

The levayos for the three murdered Israelis, Hy”d, will be held later Sunday.

Joining Bennett in calling for the death penalty for the terrorist was Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who said that he planned to raise the issue at Sunday’s meeting. Katz said he had already spoken with the State Attorney and the IDF Prosecutor’s Office on the matter. “It should be noted that the State Attorney earlier this year rendered an opinion that imposing the death penalty on terrorists would be legitimate if the Cabinet voted to do so,” he said in a statement.

MKs from parties other than Bennett’s (Jewish Home) and Katz’s (Likud) joined the call for the death penalty. MK Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu) said that he had also requested that the IDF Prosecutor impose the death penalty on the terrorist. IDF officials told Ma’ariv Sunday that in previous terror attacks that shocked the nation, such as that of the five members of the Fogel family in 2011, terrorists had been sent to prison, but that there was much greater demand for the death penalty to be imposed this time.