Collective punishment confused for ‘law’

Israel’s Knesset is about to have a second reading of an appalling, and underreported, death penalty bill. This murderous bill will be exclusive to Palestinians, yep, only Palestinians. Due to its criminal dilution of legal norms, it could give authorities a carte blanche to execute thousands of imprisoned Palestinians detained by Israel since October 7.

The bill’s wide-reaching title is: “The Prosecution of Participants in the October 7 Massacre Events.”

If that wasn’t bad enough in times when the rest of the world is moving to abolish the death penalty, Israeli policy makers are defending what they describe as the need to:

deviate from the rules of procedure and the rules of evidence.

According to the bill, this slam-dunk deviation:

is necessary for the purpose of clarifying the truth and doing justice, and does not significantly impair the fairness of the proceeding.

However, cases without evidence trash this argument, which never had legs to begin with. Palestinian defendants will also be tried in Israel’s military courts which have seen an impossible 99.7% conviction rate. This highlights, in the most sadistic way, that when there is a will, there will be a way.

Israeli leaders are drooling at the prospect of more murder—executions by hanging—genocide by alternative means. This bill is likely to be yet another way for Israel to exercise that will, under the sinister veneer of legality, to further its Zionist colonial ambitions.

Novara Media’s Rivkah Brown broke this deadly news on X:

The Dinah Report and UK complicity

Unsurprisingly, this bill becomes even more sickening and nefarious as you dig further into the detail. As Rivkah Brown highlighted on her post, this bill has been a long time in the making and preparatory work completed to make this cruel, collective punishment bill possible.

We wrote about how the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) gave £90k of taxpayers’ money to put together the Israeli report, representing a whopping 75% of the FCDO’s budget.

This blatant bias and conflict of interest should come as little to no surprise. Ever since October 7th, we have seen a concerted push by Israel and its lobby groups to manipulate data, grief and material facts in their own interest. All whilst conveniently and simultaneously demonising Palestinian resistance. If we have learned anything through this horrific 2.5 years, it is the reminder that every life matters and civilians should not pay the price for the sins of the powerful.

Similarly, Rivkah Brown argues that, since October 7, actors have made a concerted effort to manufacture a “body of literature” portraying this as a conflict unlike any other. They use that framing to claim that the destruction of evidence makes the need for evidence irrelevant.

They have also poured significant funding into producing and amplifying material that supports this narrative for a specific political purpose.

We must see this bill for what it is— a fraudulent crime by those in power who pull the levers at their disposal — including the law— to justify their genocide against Palestinians.

They have the legal right to resist their occupier, with force— a right that is protected by international law.

Nevertheless, that right for Palestinians to resist is being criminalised—no doubt an omen for the rest of the world.

UK officials follow in Israel’s footsteps

Brown further stated:

As I revealed last month, the FCDO gave £90k/120k (so 75% of its funding) to The Dinah Project’s report. The report concluded – against all existing reportage, by Amnesty, the UN and others – that sexual violence on 7 October didn’t just happen, but was “systematic”.

She also revealed the parallels in rhetoric between the Dinah Project report and this legislation working its way through the Knesset:

It is therefore difficult to view it as a coincidence that this heavily UK-funded report uses strikingly similar language and reasoning to the Knesset bill.

This alignment raises serious concerns that some UK officials may have coordinated with Israeli-linked groups in ways that risk criminalising Palestinians on a broader scale.

Such actions, if carried out, would deepen the UK’s complicity in the genocide and betrayal of Palestinian people.

As Rivkah’s subsequent post underscored, huge inferences are being used to prop up collective punishment:

A tailor-made evidence model should, the report added, collectively criminalise those who participated in the attack, not only for their own actions, but for the actions of others in the “collective mob attack”.

Collective criminalisation IS collective punishment

Collective punishment is illegal under multiple bodies of international law. Whether that be article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, or rule 103 of international humanitarian law, collective punishment is a war crime. These international legal rules play a crucial role in maintaining peace and stability, protecting civilians from punishment for acts they did not commit.

It is clear that Israel does not have sufficient evidence to attribute October 7 crimes to individual Palestinians. We have also watched Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) round up Palestinian men, including doctors and rescue workers, and imprison them. Israel has held hostage thousands of men and boys using unproven allegations of involvement in the killing of Israeli citizens and foreign nationals.

For example, Dr Abu Safiya, a Palestinian paediatrician, has been detained since December 2024, and subjected to physical and mental torture, despite having done no wrong. As Clarion India explains, his crime was:

Standing amid the ruins outside Kamal Adwan Hospital, surrounded by destruction, he walked alone in his white coat toward advancing Israeli armoured vehicles — a lone doctor facing a war machine. The image circulated widely because it captured, in a single frame, the reality of Gaza: those who heal standing unarmed before those who destroy.

We must challenge this attempt by the UK and Israel to legally justify the mass killing of innocent, oppressed and traumatised people. If we fail to act, we risk standing by as more atrocities unfold with the backing of our government.

This action constitutes a colossal crime against humanity — one that we must not forgive.

Featured image via the Canary