The negotiation to reach a truce is usually complicated, especially if there is no real will to sustain it, as is the case we are dealing with. It is natural when countries are military superpowers. Why should the United States and Israel sign truces, and respect them, when they have powerful armies, much more powerful than those of Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas?

The fragile truce in Lebanon has once again crumbled, thread by thread, under an escalation that is no longer confined to the southern border, but has reached the capital again and projects the conflict into a broader dimension. In the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday's Israeli attack marked a new turning point. The target was a commander of Hezbollah's missile unit, linked to the structure responsible for the launches against northern Israel. The bombing, described by the Israeli army as "selective," has brought the war back to the heart of the capital's periphery after weeks of relative containment.

“Netanyahu’s promises of victory over Iran end in a glorious capitulation by the United States”. “Israel entered the war as a partner of the United States and ends it on the sidelines.” These have been some headlines in the Israeli press in recent days to describe the negotiations between Washington and Tehran to agree on an end to the war. The military campaign that Israel presented as an existential battle against Iran would be closing with an uncomfortable image for Tel Aviv: Israel has gone from being a key player to being progressively left out of the talks. Israel's leader "will do whatever I want him to do," Trump said last week to the press. These were statements that in Israel were interpreted as an explicit demonstration of the current relationship between both governments. The divergence between the objectives of the United States and those of Israel is evident: Washington prioritizes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and regional stabilization, while Tel Aviv continues to defend a strategy of sustained pressure on Iran and its allies. “Trump wants to see if it is possible to reach an agreement with Iran, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting to resume military action”, Leonie Fleischmann, an expert in Israeli policy at Saint George’s University of London, explains to ARA. According to her, in Israel there is an increasingly clear perception that the United States prioritizes regional containment above Israeli strategic objectives.The feeling that Netanyahu had been sidelined was further accentuated when Trump, last Saturday, had a conversation with several regional leaders to inform them about the negotiations with Iran without including the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu and Trump spoke later. In parallel, Reuters has cited two Israeli officials according to whom the prime minister would have admitted in private conversations the difficulty of influencing the White House's decisions while negotiations with Tehran advance. According to these sources, the Israeli leader has expressed concern about the content of the agreement.In this regard, several Israeli political and security officials have described the emerging pact as a “bàd deal” because, as they claim, it does not address key issues such as Iran's ballistic missile program or the network of Tehran's allied groups in the region. Others warn that the understanding “dòes not serve Israel's interests” and could give Iran time to recover economically and militarily, according to the Israeli media outlet Channel 12. All of this, for the moment, is based on information published by various media outlets, but still without any official document. Internal criticism is growing

The Israeli opposition has also taken the opportunity to lash out at the government. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has stated that the supposed agreement "is bad for Israel, bad for the region, and even bad for the Iranian citizens." Lapid accuses Netanyahu of having allowed Washington to negotiate practically without coordination with Israel and affirms that the Israeli government is "at the lowest point of its influence capacity in Washington."This perception is compounded by growing criticism within Israel, particularly from sectors of the political right and the security establishment, who believe that Netanyahu's initial promises have not been fulfilled. The Iranian regime remains, retains a significant part of its ballistic arsenal, and maintains its regional influence.At this time, the agreement is not yet finalized but, according to the latest information, Iran could agree to hand over its enriched uranium reserves and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and the end of the American blockade on Iranian ports. The most sensitive issues of the nuclear program would remain pending negotiation for a period of sixty days and it is not yet clear whether the agreement will address Iranian missiles or support for regional armed groups, one of the main red lines for Israel.The Lebanon front, a political objective for Netanyahu

It is precisely in this context that the Lebanon front has acquired central importance. In the last few hours, Israel has intensified military operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley.“There are real security concerns on the northern border, but at the same time, Israel must hold elections before October and Netanyahu is also acting with internal political calculations”, describes Fleischman. According to the analyst, the prime minister's image as “Mr. Security” has been greatly eroded since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, and now also by the results of the war with Iran. “The escalation in Lebanon can be understood as an attempt to rebuild this image and maintain political relevance”, he concludes. In this fragile balance, while Washington and Tehran continue to define an agreement and Israel seems to have little capacity for direct influence, Lebanon functions as a political space. A space where Netanyahu tries to preserve his power through the most active front: the northern one.

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Israel is demonstrating with actions that the ceasefire in Lebanon, supposedly in effect, has no real value. On Monday, the Hebrew army initiated a strong escalation of bombings, and two days later it has made it clear that it does not intend to ease up. This Wednesday, the Arabic spokesperson for the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, urged all residents of southern Lebanon to forcibly relocate north of the Zahrani River, about 40 kilometers from the border.

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The fragile ceasefire that since April had partially contained the violence in Lebanon is once again faltering following a strong Israeli escalation that began Monday night, the most intense since the first weeks of the offensive. The new troop movements respond to the call of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to "press the accelerator even harder" against Hezbollah. While Donald Trump tries to keep indirect negotiations with Iran open, and Washington insists on the possibility of a regional agreement – despite the United States' bombings of Iranian positions this Tuesday in the early morning –, on the ground the weapons do not fall silent. Israel has expanded operations, mobilized reservists and multiplied attacks from the south to the Bekaa Valley, in the east of the country, a key area for Lebanese agriculture. In parallel, the Shiite militia Hezbollah has responded in recent hours with 22 drone and rocket attacks on Israeli positions. Their targets have included Israeli soldiers, tanks, barracks and buildings. Direct combat has also been recorded north of the Litani River. The Shiite organization continues to carry out a dynamic that, according to analyst Lina Khatib, associated with Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, also responds to directives from Iran, interested in keeping Lebanon within the broader negotiation framework with the United States.

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The Israeli army has been repeating the same message for months, but now the tone is more alarming. It warns that it is missing at least 12,000 soldiers, a figure that could quickly grow to 17,000 troops in the coming months. In a country where military service is almost an identity pillar, the problem is no longer just military: it is political and social. The crisis comes after more than two years of sustained war on multiple fronts such as Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, and Iran, with a system heavily reliant on reservists, which shows growing signs of exhaustion.The Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, has warned the government several times that the army needs soldiers "immediately", but in recent days has called for the mandatory military service for men to be extended again to thirty-six months, after it was reduced to thirty months in 2024. A few days after Zamir's call, General Shay Tayeb, head of army personnel planning, has detailed that the soldier deficit "will increase considerably" and that if it is now 12,000 soldiers, it could reach 17,000. The concern within the army is particularly great because in January 2027 the first cohort affected by this reduction in service will be demobilized. This could mean the departure of about 4,000 soldiers at once and further aggravate the staff shortage.“This war on seven fronts [Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, the Houthis, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Iran] has a direct impact on our soldiers. We need to extend mandatory military service again from 30 to 36 months – Ephraim Lapid, an Israeli military analyst and former army spokesperson, explains to ARA–. Despite everything, motivation remains high because the population understands the threats Israel faces. Israeli society's support remains solid”.One of the most pressing problems is the weariness of reservists: approximately 70% of the total military force and nearly half of some combat units are made up of reservists. Initially, the army planned to mobilize them for about 55 days during 2026. The reality has been very different. After the war against Iran, many soldiers already accumulate between 80 and 100 days of service. In this context, the army has warned that the reservist system could "collapse" if legislation is not passed to resolve the personnel shortage.

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When the agreement between the United States and Iran seemed imminent, Donald Trump has made a new U-turn and has conditioned the understanding on the Gulf countries normalizing relations with Israel, its historic regional rival. In a message on his Truth Social network, the American president has urged the mediating states, starting with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to sign the so-called Abraham Accords – which explicitly include this normalization – if they want the pact that would allow the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened to prosper.

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In Nabatieh, the silence only lasts until the next explosion. From the terrace of a makeshift rescue base, Mohamed Sulayman scans the southern Lebanese valley for columns of smoke. Every gray cloud on the horizon could signify a hit house, a bombed road, or a family trapped under rubble. When the phone rings, volunteers rush to the ambulances without knowing if they will return.

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In the port area of Beirut, amidst the metallic noise of containers, the wind coming from the Mediterranean, and the concrete blocks of the Biel exhibition center, displacement has ceased to seem like an emergency and has become a stable landscape of precariousness. The space functions as an informal settlement where hundreds of displaced people from southern Lebanonare concentrated, who have fled the Israeli bombs. Blue tarps stretched between metal structures, improvised tents attached to cement walls, and mattresses directly on the ground; a landscape that is beginning to become commonplace.

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"If you'll take one piece of advice, don't miss this book," he assured a few days ago Keret appears punctually on his computer screen in Tel Aviv, the city where he grew up and where he still lives and teaches creative writing. It's eleven in the morning, but he's been up for hours: he has a habit of going out at a quarter past seven to take a walk on the beach, which is ten minutes from his home. "I'm sorry I haven't been to Barcelona in so long. Maybe with the next book they'll invite me," he admits, before offering a small sample of his irony. "For now, with things the way they are in my country, it's normal for you to be afraid of someone like me coming."

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Turning religion into a political actor, even physically eliminating progressive and secular forces, has historically been done in the service of imperialist militarism. In 1978, the Carter administration, with its security advisor, the Pole Zbigniew Brzezinski, began to sponsor the anti-communist far-right of different religions. They financed Sunni jihadists to dismantle the socialist government of Afghanistan and Ayatollah Khomeini's Shia jihadism to abort the Iranian democratic revolution. And, in the same year, while financing Lech Walesa's pseudo-workers' union in the People's Republic of Poland, they installed John Paul II at the Vatican, the center of the soft power of global capitalism, a Polish anti-communist and opponent of liberation theology. All these were maneuvers related to countries that, by "coincidence," were neighbors of the Soviet Union.

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For decades, Iran has occupied the center of the Israeli strategic imagination. But in recent months, a different debate has begun to emerge: what if the great regional rival of the future were Turkey? Relations between Turkey and Israel have gone, in less than three decades, from a strategic alliance to a rivalry marked by distrust. In the nineties, Ankara and Tel Aviv maintained close military and intelligence cooperation and shared similar concerns about Syria and Iran. Israel considered Turkey its main Muslim partner in the region. In fact, Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel, in 1949, and Ankara, for its part, sought to strengthen ties with Washington through its relationship with Israel.But the arrival to power of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), in 2002 began to progressively alter this balance. A shift explained, above all, by the growing centrality of the Palestinian issue in Turkish foreign policy and by increasingly critical rhetoric towards Israel. The deterioration accelerated with the Gaza war of 2008-2009 and the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident in 2010, when an Israeli operation against a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza ended with the death of nine Turkish citizens. But the Israeli offensive on Gaza after Hamas's attacks on October 7, 2023, has brought tensions to their highest point in decades.Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler. He has also described Israel as a “terrorist state” and argued that its leaders should be tried for war crimes. Israel, for its part, accuses Ankara of providing political cover to Hamas, an organization that Turkey does not consider terrorist, and denounces the continued repression by the Turkish government against the Kurds, an ethnic group spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.“I would describe the current state of bilateral relations as a total collapse”, Alon Liel, former Israeli ambassador and former Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Economy, explains to ARA. “The two countries are hostile to each other. Relations have been completely emptied of content, and the only thing that still remains is the diplomatic link”.The Palestinian issue, however, is only one part of the problem. One of the other major points of friction is the new Syria after the fall of Al-Assad. Ankara and Tel Aviv have gone from having relatively parallel interests to defending almost incompatible visions about the Syrian future.Divergent interests in Syria

As pointed out by various analysis centers such as the Stimson Center or the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Turkey is betting on a centralized Syrian state aligned with its sphere of influence, with the aim of reinforcing Syrian state control south of its border and limiting autonomous Kurdish structures. Israel, on the other hand, prefers a more fragmented Syria, with ample room for autonomy for Druze and Kurds, to limit possible threats to its northern border and contain Turkish influence. In this context, Israel has notably expanded its presence in southern Syria, has bombed Syrian military installations, and has offered support to Druze militias.“Neither Turkey nor Israel wants a direct military confrontation in Syria, at least in the short term”, Howard Eissenstat, professor of history at St. Lawrence University in the United States, and author of books on contemporary Turkish politics, describes to ARA. “But both have begun to see each other as potential rivals”. According to him, what is emerging is not so much an open war as “a kind of regional Cold War”, marked by attempts to demonstrate power without reaching a direct confrontation.In Tel Aviv, the possibility of Turkey emerging as the main Sunni regional power in a post-Iranian scenario is particularly concerning. In fact, some Israeli authorities are already openly stating this, such as former Prime Minister and opposition figure Naftali Bennett, who has gone so far as to say that “Turkey is the new Iran”. Nevertheless, analysts continue to qualify the comparison with relations with Iran. Turkey, for example, despite the rhetoric, continues to maintain important economic relations with Israel, with trade that has gone from 3 billion euros in 2010 to 7.4 billion in 2021, according to the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.According to former Israeli ambassador Alon Liel, Turkey's real ability to become a strategic threat to Israel will depend primarily on Israel's international position and American support. "Turkey could only challenge Israel with the support of the United States. Without this support, it will not dare to do so," he concludes.

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The Israeli army has intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla for the second time, the international civilian initiative that denounces the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Shortly after ten in the morning this Monday, soldiers on board speedboats stormed about thirty humanitarian ships when they were about 250 miles from the coast of Gaza, in international waters. This is an area within the zone where Cyprus is responsible for rescuing any vessel in distress and Israel has no jurisdiction there. The solidarity initiative involves 54 boats with 460 activists, from 44 different nationalities, including about twenty Catalans, and specialized teams in medicine and reconstruction.

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On March 1, 2026, a spokesperson for the Iranian government announced on television: “After a lifetime of incessant and tireless struggle (...), the supreme leader Ali Khamenei drank the sweet chalice of martyrdom and entered Paradise.” He described Khamenei as “the tireless leader who has guided the state for the last 40 years” and, at the end of his statement, could not contain his tears.Not everyone in Iran thinks this way. There are citizens who would be willing to negotiate a reduction in economic sanctions and an agreement with the US, but they have no vehicle to express it. In an autocratic state, the opposition does not have the capacity to express itself. Even less so in Iran, where the opposition is physically massacred, with thousands of deaths and dozens of executions.Khamenei has been able to politically nullify his adversaries over the almost 40 years he has been the supreme leader –reformists at different levels: Rafsanjani, Khatami, Ahmadinejad, Rouhani, Pezeshkian–, and has consolidated his orthodoxy of intransigence with the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the backbone of a police state. The fact that the one chosen to succeed him has been his son, Mojtaba, confirms this.The relationship between the US and Israel has mutated under the Trump administration into an alliance of equals. Beyond the supply of American weaponry, ammunition, and military intelligence since the birth of the Hebrew state in 1948, the alliance between the two countries to conduct a shared war in the Gulf seeks to obtain an incontestable political, military, and economic supremacy, which both imagine as viable and for which Israel has openly fought since 1967 and the US since the 1980s.

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By the sea, between giant screens, beers and groups of young people wrapped in the flag, the public viewing of the Eurovision festival seems, at first glance, a Mediterranean pop celebration. Four large screens, food trucks, contests, a vip area and merchandising have been set up outdoors in the space dubbed Tel-Aviv 360. But the musical euphoria coexists with another reality: Eurovision has become foreign policy, propaganda, national pride and a symbolic battle over Israel's international legitimacy.

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It seems that the current war will end up strengthening Iran. Perhaps it will end up returning, more or less and under a different name, to Obama's 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting the imposed sanctions. A situation that would weaken the almost unconditional support of the US for Israel and that would question the Greater Israel project shamelessly defended by the Netanyahu government.

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The Old City of Jerusalem, a walled nucleus sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, has once again become a funnel for ultranationalist chants, shoves, and insults. Since noon, thousands of young ultranationalist Jews, many of them settlers from different parts of Israel and the West Bank, have flooded the narrow streets of the Muslim Quarter during their celebration of Jerusalem Day, the day on which Israel commemorates the conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967, the part of the city with a Muslim majority. The result, once again, has been a show of force laden with tension, intimidation, and verbal violence against Palestinians, activists, and journalists. Amidst the morning chaos, several groups of volunteers from the anti-occupation Judeo-Arab movement Standing Together were trying to form a human barrier between the ultranationalist groups and the Palestinians. “We act as a protective presence. We try to stop violence with non-violent techniques, with our bodies. We know we can be arrested. But we do not want to leave the city in the hands of extremists or to further divide Jerusalem”, explained one of the activists from the organization. According to him, the movement has grown year after year to be 400 today. Early in the afternoon, the swarm of ultra-nationalist Jews entering through the Damascus Gate, the entrance that connects East Jerusalem with the Muslim quarter and the main access for Palestinians to the Old City, was impressive: human rivers of flags advanced slowly amid dances, drums, and chants. “We need another Nakba” or “may your people burn”, were some of the main slogans. “We must finish them [the Arabs] because they want to kill us. It is our day”, said one of the few demonstrators who agreed to speak to the press.Whole buses unloaded groups of young people wearing kippahs, the typical cap worn by Jews, who carried giant banners, Israeli flags and of the Third Temple, a religious symbol used by messianic movements that advocate for the construction of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, the place where the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, stands today. In the mid-afternoon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the march to applause after having visited the Temple Mount during the morning. Shortly after, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also joined. As every year, the marches ended at the Western Wall.However, not all participants in the march shared the more radical chants. “We celebrate the unification of the city and the aggressors are isolated cases,” defended a young man with an Israeli flag over his shoulders. “I believe there is a peaceful solution under Israeli control of the entire city. I don't like Palestinians being beaten.” Throughout the day, Palestinian businesses in the Muslim quarter have closed. “It's as if for a few hours the city stopped being ours,” said the owner of a small, almost empty grocery store. “I'm not afraid, but today it's better to stay open as little as possible.” According to the authorities, more than 4,000 agents, including soldiers and police, have been deployed to secure this part of the city.The military service of the ultra-Orthodox

Tensions in the streets coincide with a delicate political moment: this Wednesday, the parties in Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have registered a bill to dissolve the Israeli parliament prematurely and call elections, in a maneuver with which Netanyahu is trying to control the pace of the political crisis before the opposition capitalizes on the internal rupture of the government, according to Israeli media. The text proposes holding elections within a minimum of ninety days after the law's approval, which would open the door to elections as early as late August or early September, instead of October.The crisis has been precipitated by the conflict with the ultra-Orthodox parties over the exemption from mandatory military service for Haredi students. After months of negotiations without agreement, the ultra-Orthodox faction Degel HaTorah announced this week that it would support dissolving Parliament in the face of the government's inability to pass a law guaranteeing the military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox. Next week the bill will undergo a first vote. If it passes this first stage, the proposal will have to pass three more votes before officially activating the electoral call.

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The Old City of Jerusalem, a walled nucleus sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, has once again become a funnel of ultranationalist chants, pushes, and insults. Since noon, thousands of young ultranationalist Jews – many of them settlers who arrived from different parts of Israel and the West Bank – have flooded the narrow streets of the Muslim quarter during their celebration of Jerusalem Day, the day on which Israel commemorates the conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967, the part of the city with a Muslim majority.The result, one more year, has been a show of force loaded with tension, intimidation, and verbal violence against Palestinians, activists, and journalists. Amidst the morning chaos, several groups of volunteers from the Jewish-Arab movement against the occupation, Standing Together, were trying to form a human barrier between ultranationalist groups and Palestinians. “We act as a protective presence. We try to stop violence with non-violent techniques, with our bodies. We know we can be arrested, but we don't want to leave the city in the hands of extremists or further divide Jerusalem,” explained one of the organization's activists. According to him, the movement has grown year after year to be 400 strong today.In the early afternoon, the swarm of ultranationalist Jews entering through the Damascus Gate, the entrance connecting East Jerusalem with the Muslim Quarter and the main access for Palestinians to the Old City, was impressive: human rivers of flags advanced slowly amidst dances, drums, and chants. "We need another Nakba" or "May your people burn" were some of the main slogans. "We must eliminate them [the Arabs] because they want to kill us. It is our day," said one of the few demonstrators who agreed to speak with the press.Entire buses have unloaded groups of young people wearing kippahs – the typical hat of Jews – carrying giant banners, Israeli flags, and flags of the Third Temple, a religious symbol used by messianic movements that advocate for the construction of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, the site where the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, stands today. Mid-afternoon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the march to applause after visiting the Temple Mount during the morning. Shortly after, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also joined. As every year, the marches ended at the Western Wall.However, not all participants in the march shared the more radical chants. "We are celebrating the unification of the city and the aggressive ones are isolated cases," defended a young man with an Israeli flag over his shoulders. "I believe there is a peaceful solution under Israeli control for the entire city. I don't like Palestinians being beaten," he added.Throughout the day, Palestinian businesses in the Muslim quarter have closed. “It’s as if for a few hours the city stopped being ours”, said the owner of a small, almost empty grocery store. “I’m not afraid, but today it’s better to stay open as little as possible”, he affirmed. According to the authorities, more than 4,000 agents, including soldiers and police, have been deployed to secure this part of the city.Israel dissolves Parliament

The tension in the streets coincides with a delicate political moment: this Wednesday the parties of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have registered a bill to dissolve the Israeli Parliament early and call elections, in a maneuver with which Netanyahu tries to control the pace of the political crisis before the opposition capitalizes on the internal rupture of the government, according to Israeli media. The text proposes holding elections within a minimum period of ninety days after the law's approval, which would open the door to elections as early as the end of August or the beginning of September, instead of October.The crisis has been triggered by the conflict with the ultra-Orthodox parties over the exemption from compulsory military service. After months of negotiations without agreement, the ultra-Orthodox faction Degel HaTorah announced this week that it would support dissolving Parliament in the face of the government's inability to pass a law guaranteeing the military exemption for the ultra-Orthodox. Next week, the bill will undergo a first vote. If it overcomes this first hurdle, the proposal will have to pass three more votes before officially triggering the election call.

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The night of April 29 to 30, the Israeli navy stormed the Global Sumud Flotillathe Israeli navy boarded the Global Sumud FlotillaApril 29, 5 p.m.

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The Israeli Parliament approved this Monday one of the most exceptional legal initiatives in its recent history: a special legal framework to try those responsible for the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, with the possibility of imposing the death penalty. The legislation, dubbed the law for the prosecution of participants in the events of the October 7 massacre, has achieved unusual political consensus between the government and the opposition. It has been driven by the Israeli Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, and sponsored by MPs Simcha Rothman, a member of the government coalition, and Yulia Malinovsky, from the opposition. The law advanced this Monday to its second and third readings in the Israeli Parliament, and was finally approved with 93 votes in favor out of a total of 120. The legal text foresees the creation of a special military tribunal in Jerusalem to begin trying at least 300 attackers captured in Israel after the October 7 assault. For the last two and a half years, Israeli authorities have held these detainees in various penitentiary centers while they debated which legal framework would allow them to be prosecuted.An 'ad hoc' law

The law is created to judge crimes committed between October 7 and 10, 2023, and will classify murders, rapes, kidnappings, looting, and other crimes as “crimes against the Jewish people”, “crimes against humanity”, and “war crimes”. It also includes offenses committed subsequently against hostages transferred to Gaza, including those who died during captivity. To be able to impose death sentences, the court will rely on existing laws in Israel, such as the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Offenses Law of 1950, offenses against the sovereignty of the State, or the anti-terrorism law approved in 2016. This would allow the death penalty to be applied not only for murders but also for rapes and genocide offenses.Although the court will be in Jerusalem, proceedings will be divided according to the attack scenarios, such as the Nova Festival or the communities in southern Israel, such as Nir Oz. Each case will have three judges, and in case of a death sentence, the appeal would be automatic before a court presided over by a former judge of the Israeli Supreme Court. The accused will have the right to legal representation by lawyers licensed in Israel or the West Bank. If an accused person does not have their own defense, the court will assign them a lawyer, and the Israeli state will attempt to subsequently recover the cost of the defense by deducting it from funds transferred to the Palestinian Authority.Retroactive character

One of the most controversial features is the public dimension of the trials. The main hearings, such as the opening of the trial, the reading of the charges, the verdicts, and the sentences, will be broadcast live via a dedicated website. Adding to this is another problematic point: the retroactive nature of the law. Unlike the law passed in March, which already expanded Israel's ability to impose the death penalty for terrorism offenses with fatalities, this law against participants in the October 7 attacks allows for the investigation and prosecution of acts that occurred before the legal framework was approved.Although Minister Yariv Levin, the main proponent of the initiative, has assured that the trials will meet "all international standards" and will allow for "international recognition and trust, especially from the United States," various Israeli human rights organizations have expressed concern about the content of the legal text.The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) states in declarations to ARA that despite the Ministry of Justice's efforts to preserve certain procedural guarantees, "this is not a standard criminal proceeding." The organization particularly warns about the elimination of the unanimity requirement in military courts for imposing the death penalty, so that a majority of judges will be sufficient to issue it.Along the same lines, organizations such as the legal center for the rights of the Arab minority in Israel Adalah, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and the organization that provides legal assistance and defends the rights of Palestinians HaMoked have gone further in their criticism. In a joint report, they warn that the new legislation places Israel "in direct opposition to the international trend towards the abolition of the death penalty" and could violate international law obligations, including the prohibition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.According to these entities, the text grants judges broad discretion to deviate from ordinary procedural guarantees. They also warn that the exceptional system of appointing magistrates and the risk of political influence could compromise the standards of a fair trial. The complaint further adds that the public broadcast of the proceedings could turn them into "show trials" and erode the presumption of innocence, by exposing defendants publicly before a final sentence is reached.Israel has only executed one person since its founding: Adolf Eichmann, convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the Holocaust in 1962. In 1988, Israeli courts also sentenced John Demjanjuk to death for crimes committed in Nazi camps, but the Supreme Court later overturned the sentence.

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