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The gap between official positions and reality in the case of the death penalty in Israel and Palestine is quite remarkable. While the Israeli penal code doesn't include the death penalty, the state of Israel did carry out the death penalty one time in the early 1960s against chief Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman. Since that date, no Israeli prosecutor has ever requested the application of the death penalty and therefore no court has ever issued the death penalty. Until the wave of suicide bombers, the Israeli intelligence service had feared that if the death penalty existed, it would create martyrs among those who would face the death penalty. The Israeli security also thought that if the prospective attackers knew that if caught they would be executed, they will carry out even more daring attacks.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority, still not a sovereign state, has legalized the death penalty, with courts issuing the penalty but in most cases not carrying it out, allowing some prisoners to escape or be murdered inside its jails.

Despite the absence of the death penalty in the Israeli courts, the Israeli security has, de facto, carried out the death penalty. At times in disguise and other times in the middle of the day, Israel has consciously and with premeditation assasinted hundreds of Palestinians under what they call targeted killings.

Israel justifies its assassination policy as an action taken in self-defence and legitimate anti-terrorism action, but the UK's foreign minister Jack Straw has called these assassinations "unlawful."

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, reiterated the UN's consistent and vocal opposition to such assassinations. "Israel clearly has a right to live in peace and security," Mr. Roed-Larsen said in a statement, "but no country can resort to these extra-judicial measures."

Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan expressed deep concern over Israel's continued use of assassination. "There is no doubt that Israel has a right to defend itself", Mr. Ramcharan said. "However, this must be done within the rule of law. Using targeted killings raises serious questions of legality and proportionality, and is likely to make more difficult efforts to move towards peace, as well as risking the further undermining of respect for human rights of Palestinians and Israelis."

Israel's current policy of assassination began under the premiership of Ehud Barak and has continued until today. Senior Israeli political and military officials have acknowledged and condoned the policy of assassination publicly. On July 4, 2001, Israel's security cabinet voted to give the army almost complete freedom of action to kill anyone suspected of being involved in armed activity. This decision effectively widened the scope for extra-judicial execution. Israeli authorities had initially justified a policy of assassination on the grounds that it targeted only those suspects who were "on their way" to carry out an attack or were preparing to lay a bomb. The shift announced after the security cabinet meeting effectively gave the green light to kill anyone on its list.

From October 2000 to April 2003, Israel has killed more than 230 Palestinians, including 80 children, women and innocent bystanders, in assassination actions. Over 300 persons have been injured in these actions. In the period 10-14 June 2003, Israel killed 27 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others in a series of extrajudicial killings carried out by helicopter gunships in the Gaza Strip. These attacks included an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Dr. Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, a senior political leader of Hamas. Four people were killed and 35 injured while 29 nearby apartments were damaged. On 12 June 2003, Israeli army helicopters launched missiles on the car of Yasser Taha. He was immediately killed, together with his wife and young daughter. In addition, five other civilians were killed in the attack and 36 were wounded, including 10 children. A year later Sheikh Ahmad Yasin was assassinated as he was escorted from a local Gaza mosque on his arm chair after attending dawn prayer. A month later, Rantisi was also assassinated.

Israel's claims that it is not possible to arrest and try suspects, particularly where they are in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, is not backed by evidence. There have been instances in which arrests could have been made.

The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, had little concern about calling for the death penalty often as a means of absorbing public pressure. Of the 74 individuals who were sentenced to death, however, only 13 actually faced the firing squad.

Among those who were sentenced:
* 2 death sentences were commuted to prison sentences
* 8 persons sentenced to death were murdered while in PA custody
* 11 persons sentenced to death were released from prison or escaped
* 2 persons sentenced to death have gone missing

The Palestinian Authority's statutes allow the death penalty, its courts have imposed the death penalty, and the sentence has been executed. The Palestinian Penal Code applied in the West Bank enables imposition of the death penalty on a person who was convicted of committing any of seventeen offenses, while in the Gaza Strip, fifteen offenses warrant the death penalty. The two penal laws are implemented by ordinary civil courts.

Also, the Palestinian Authority imposes the death penalty pursuant to the PLO Revolutionary Penal Code, of 1979. The code enables imposition of the death penalty on a person who is convicted of any of forty-two offenses and is applied by special courts operated by the Palestinian Authority: military courts and state security courts. These special courts are responsible for the vast majority of death sentences imposed by the Palestinian Authority

Jurists and human rights activists believe that the imposition of the death penalty in the Palestinian judicial system contravenes international law in several ways:
1) the number of offenses for which the death sentence may be imposed is extremely broad and inconsistent with the requirement that the list be restricted to the most grievous crimes;
2) the trials in the special courts deny defendants the elementary rules of due process. The trials are in effect "field trials" in which the defendants are not given any meaningful opportunity to defend themselves; and
3) the Palestinian Authority offers no judicial procedure to appeal the sentence given by the special courts, and only the president of the Palestinian Authority has the power to alter the sentence.

It is significant that the majority of death sentences were issued by the State Security Court, which was established by the PNA in 1995. Palestinian human rights groups have consistently criticised the existence of this court, which lacks minimum standards for a fair trial - security officers act as judges, trials are summary and do not allow time for defense cases to be formed and verdicts and sentences delivered are not subject to appeal.

Various Palestinian civil society groups have called upon the PNA and the PLC to formally abolish the death penalty in Palestinian legislation and convert death sentences issued to prison sentences. As the majority of death sentences were issued by the State Security Court, Palestinian human rights activists have called for a review of these sentences by civil courts.

Daoud Kuttab is Founder and Director of Al Quds Educational Television Station