Knesset establishes historic law to prosecute Oct. 7 terrorists

( May 15, 2026 / JNS ) On May 11, the Knesset voted 93-0 in favor of a law providing a legal framework for the prosecution of terrorists involved in the Oct.7, 2023, Hamas invasion.

The law was hailed as “historic” by its legislators.The legislation details how judges and prosecutors are to be selected, how trials are to be conducted, and provides for an appeals process.“The purpose of this law is to regulate the prosecution of perpetrators of acts of hostility, murder, sexual crimes, kidnapping and looting carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization and its partners as part of the murderous terrorist attack,” its explanatory section says.Analysts JNS spoke with hope that it will facilitate the trial and conviction of the terrorists responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.Gazan invaders killed at least 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.The law establishes a special military court in Jerusalem dedicated to trying the terrorists involved in the attack on Oct.

7-10, 2023.These will include the Nukhba terrorists, the “elite” Hamas force that spearheaded the attack.

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There are an estimated 300 Nukhba terrorists in Israeli prisons.They are among several thousand terrorists and suspected terrorists detained by Israel since the war’s outbreak.Indictments are expected to be brought against 400 suspects.

That number may increase depending on ongoing investigations.Judge Haran Fainstein, a retired Israeli judge who teaches at Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Criminology, told JNS, “The ‘regular’ courts and the military courts do not have the manpower or the facilities to handle such complicated cases.”Knesset member Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism Party, who sponsored the law ...