Israel’s parliament on Monday passed a law approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis. The law makes death by hanging the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis in areas functionally controlled by Israel, including the West Bank and 53 percent of the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the Knesset to cast his vote for the bill in person. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who spearheaded the legislation, celebrated its passage by toasting lawmakers. This is Sarit Michaeli of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.

Sarit Michaeli: “This law violates both the laws of occupation that place severe restrictions on the ability of placing the death sentence on — by the occupying power against the occupied population, but also is discriminatory because Israeli Jews who live in the Occupied Territories, Israeli settlers, will not face any sort of death penalty in the rare occurrence that they might actually be convicted, tried or convicted, of any sort of offenses, and certainly not the killing of Palestinians.”

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to strike down the law minutes after it passed, calling it “discriminatory by design.” The foreign ministers of Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy had urged Israel to abandon the measure. Israel has not executed anyone since Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Hundreds of Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons due to torture and other inhumane conditions, while the United Nations has condemned the killing of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers as extrajudicial executions.