Friday, April 03, 2026
Israel passes death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks | Reuters (Isreal's Racist European Colonialism Continues)
Israel passes death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of lethal attacks
JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) - Israel's parliament passed a law on Monday making death by hanging a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks, fulfilling a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies.
The law would only apply to Israelis convicted of murder whose attacks aimed at "ending Israel's existence", meaning it would mete out the death penalty for Palestinians but not for Jewish Israelis who committed similar crimes, critics say.
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The legislation has drawn international criticism of Israel, which is already under scrutiny for increasing violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and its war in Gaza.
NO RIGHT TO CLEMENCY
The measure includes provisions requiring an execution by hanging within 90 days of sentencing, with some allowance for a delay but no right to clemency. It provides the option of imposing a life imprisonment sentence instead of capital punishment, but only in unspecified "special circumstances".
Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. The only person executed in Israel after a civilian trial was Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Nazi Holocaust, in 1962.
Military courts in the West Bank can already sentence Palestinian convicts to death but have not done so.
The measure was promoted by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister who wore noose-shaped lapel pins in the run-up to the vote.
"This is a day of justice for the murdered, a day of deterrence for enemies," Ben-Gvir said in parliament. "Whoever chooses terror chooses death."
PALESTINIANS REJECT LAW, SOME CALL FOR ATTACKS
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the legislation as a breach of international law and a doomed bid meant to intimidate Palestinians.
"Such laws and measures will not break the will of the Palestinian people or undermine their steadfastness," Abbas' office said in a statement.
"Nor will they deter them from continuing their legitimate struggle for freedom, independence, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital."
Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians to launch attacks in revenge for the law.
CRITICS SAY BILL IS DISCRIMINATORY
Israel's leading rights groups decried the law as "an act of institutionalized discrimination and racist violence against Palestinians." The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said it filed an appeal against the law with Israel's Supreme Court.
[1/3]Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir shake hands as the Israeli government approve Netanyahu's proposal to reappoint Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of National Security, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusaelm, March 19, 2025 REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon Purchase Licensing Rights
The law is the latest action by Netanyahu's nationalist-religious coalition to raise concern among Israel's Western allies, who have also been critical of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In an effort to head off international backlash, Netanyahu asked for some elements of the legislation to be softened, Israeli media reported. He voted in favour of the bill, which won the backing of 62 of the Knesset's 120 members.
The original bill had mandated the death sentence for non-Israeli citizens convicted in West Bank military courts of deadly terrorist acts. The revised legislation includes the option of life imprisonment.
In Israel's civilian courts, the new legislation mandates either life imprisonment or the death penalty for anyone convicted of "deliberately causing the death of a person with the intent of ending Israel's existence."
Critics of the bill say that language effectively confines those Israelis who can be sentenced to death to members of the country's 20% Arab minority, many of whom identify as Palestinian, and not to Jewish citizens.
Even before the vote, the bill drew criticism from the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain, who said it had a "de facto discriminatory" character toward Palestinians and undermines Israel's democratic principles.
A group of U.N. experts said the bill includes vague definitions of "terrorist", meaning the death penalty could be meted out over "conduct that is not genuinely terrorist".
Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party argues that the death penalty will deter Palestinians from carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis or attempting kidnappings with the aim of affecting swap deals for Palestinians jailed in Israeli prisons.
Amnesty International, which tracks countries imposing death penalty laws, says there "is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment".
Professionals in Israel's legal establishment argued the bill was unconstitutional, increasing the likelihood of the Supreme Court striking down the law.
GLOBAL TREND ON DEATH PENALTY IS TOWARD ABOLITION
Some 54 countries around the world permit the death penalty, including a handful of democracies such as the United States and Japan, according to Amnesty International. The group says the global trend is toward abolition, with 113 countries having outlawed it.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem says military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96% conviction rate and a history of extracting confessions through torture.
Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and support for the Kach group on the Israeli and U.S. terrorism blacklists, has overseen an overhaul of prisons that has led to allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
He made capital punishment for Palestinian militants a main pledge in his 2022 election campaign and since taking office has publicly backed some Israeli soldiers being probed for suspected excessive force against Palestinians.
The next national election is due in October 2026.
Reporting by Pesha Magid and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; editing by Rami Ayyub, William Maclean and Stephen Coates"
Is the US committing war crimes by targeting Iran’s civilian infrastructure? | International law | The Guardian
Is the US committing war crimes by targeting Iran’s civilian infrastructure?
"Donald Trump, other senior US officials and their cheerleaders appear to be embracing attacks – and threats of attacks – on Iranian civilian infrastructure, which legal experts say appears to constitute serious war crimes under international law.
In his rambling national address on Wednesday, the US president warned that if Iran did not reach an unspecified deal with him, US forces would “hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants” and “bring [Iran] back to the stone ages – where they belong”.
Following through on that threat a day later, Trump posted images of a strike on an the unfinished B1 bridge near Tehran, warning: “Much more to follow!”
Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director of research, advocacy, policy and campaigns said: “Intentionally attacking civilian infrastructure such as power plants is generally prohibited. .
“Even in the limited cases that they qualify as military targets, a party still cannot attack power plants if this may cause disproportionate harm to civilians.
“Given that such power plants are essential for meeting the basic needs and livelihoods of tens of millions of civilians, attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law, and could amount to a war crime.”
That principle was underlined in 2024 when the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Russian politician and a former defence minister, Sergei Shoigu and the Russian general Valery Gerasimov, who were accused of directing widespread attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure and of causing excessive harm to civilians.
On Thursday, more than 100 US experts in international law from universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the University of California, said the conduct of US forces and statements by senior US officials “raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes”.
The letter, published on the website of the Just Security policy journal, highlighted Trump’s comment last month that the US may conduct strikes on Iran “just for fun”. It also cited comments by the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who told reporters the US did not fight with “stupid rules of engagement”.
The experts said they were “seriously concerned about strikes that have hit schools, health facilities, and homes”, noting an attack on a school in Tehran on the first day of the war that killed more than 160 children and teachers.
The two issues of what constitutes a civilian object and the consideration of proportionality in striking civilian objects that a belligerent has identified as having a military function are among the knottier questions in international humanitarian law.
Under article 52 of the first additional protocol to the Geneva conventions of 1977, “civilian objects”, such as infrastructure, are defined not in themselves but by what they are not: military objectives whose destruction offers no definite military advantage.
At the heart of the question of what may –or may not – be attacked is the overarching principle of distinction between civilians and combatants. Rule 10 of the customary rules international humanitarian law – relating to both international and internal armed conflicts – explicitly states: “Civilian objects are protected against attack, unless and for such time as they are military objectives.”
That places a requirement on all parties: attackers must avoid targeting civilian objects and the party under attack must avoid “mingling” the military and civilians.
Codified in international law, the statute of the international criminal court also makes it explicit that it is a war crime intentionally to direct attacks against civilian objects if they “are not military objectives”.
Even when a civilian object is deemed to have become a military object, international law requires an attacking party to balance the harm to the civilian population.
International law has become more explicit and precise over the issue of the protection of civilian objects since the second world war, but the US and western allies have launched questionable attacks on civilian infrastructure before, including against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf war and on Serbian power plants.
The crippling of Iran’s power plants would be “devastating to the Iranian people”, cutting off electricity to hospitals, water supplies and other vital civilian needs, said Sarah Yager, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch.
“The US military has protocols designed to constrain that kind of harm to the civilian population, but when the president speaks this way, it risks signalling that those constraints are optional, and that is what makes this moment so dangerous,” she said.
International law permits attacks on energy plants and other ostensibly civilian targets only if determined that they primarily support military activity. But Trump’s statements indicate otherwise, said Tom Dannenbaum, a professor at Stanford Law School.
“The reference to the stone age indicates that objects would be targeted seemingly because they contribute to the viability of a modern society in Iran, which is completely unrelated to the question of contribution to military action –the necessary condition for targeting in war,” he said.
Attacks on civilian objects by both Iran, the US and Israel have prompted a pointed response from the president of the international committee, Mirjana Spoljaric, who said war crimes may be being committed.
“War on essential infrastructure is war on civilians … Deliberate attacks on essential services and civilian infrastructure can amount to war crimes. We are seeing energy, fuel, water and healthcare infrastructure damaged and destroyed.
“This disturbing trend is not limited to the Middle East or the last three weeks; it has been pervasive in conflicts across regions.”
Thursday, April 02, 2026
Trump Administration Live Updates: Bondi Fired as Attorney General - The New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Bondi Fired as Attorney General
"Here’s What We’re Covering Today
Bondi Fired: President Trump has been souring on Attorney General Pam Bondi for months, especially because of her handling of the Epstein files, which has become a political liability for Mr. Trump. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer to Mr. Trump, will be the acting attorney general, the president wrote on social media. Mr. Trump said Ms. Bondi would be taking a job in the private sector. Read more ›
President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, removing the nation’s top law enforcement officer after privately venting his frustrations for months over her handling of the Epstein files and her failed efforts to prosecute his political enemies.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump said he was replacing Ms. Bondi with Todd Blanche, her deputy, on an interim basis.
April 2, 2026, 2:07 p.m. ET
The House Oversight Committee was scheduled to depose Pam Bondi on April 14 over the Justice Department’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and its handling of investigative material in the case. But Bondi had not yet committed to appearing, according to people familiar with the discussions between her and the committee.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel, said in a statement that Bondi was still “legally obligated to appear before our committee under oath,” and Representative Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who moved to subpoena for Bondi, said that “my subpoena still stands.”
A spokeswoman said the committee’s Republican chairman, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, would discuss next steps with the Justice Department and committee members before deciding how to proceed.
April 2, 2026, 1:56 p.m. ET
Stacey Young, the founder of Justice Connection, a group of former Justice Department employees, said Pam Bondi had taken a “sledgehammer” to the department and its workforce, causing damage that could take decades to rebuild. But she said she believed President Trump had dismissed Bondi only because “she didn’t go far enough.”
Young called on Congress to demand an apolitical replacement. “Replacing her with a more competent attorney general who — like her — believes their sole client is the president and not the country may just make things worse,” she said.
April 2, 2026, 1:38 p.m. ET
Todd Blanche, the new acting attorney general, said in a statement that Pam Bondi “led this Department with strength and conviction” and thanked Trump for promoting him.
“We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe,” Blanche wrote on social media.”
April 2, 2026, 1:27 p.m. ET
Representative Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican who pushed for the Oversight Committee to subpoena Pam Bondi and had been one of her more outspoken G.O.P. critics, said in a statement that she looked forward to Bondi’s replacement.
“Bondi handled the Epstein Files in a terrible manner and made this situation far worse than it had to be for President Trump,” Mace said.
April 2, 2026, 1:23 p.m. ET
President Trump formally announced on Truth Social that he was firing Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her on an interim basis with Todd Blanche, her deputy.
“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future,” he wrote on social media.
The National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by allies of President Trump, approved the president’s $400 million White House ballroom project despite a deluge of negative comments from the public. But legal roadblocks remain after a federal judge ruled that Mr. Trump must get approval from Congress to proceed.
The planning board’s approval came just days after Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered the project halted.
The Senate moved early Thursday to try again to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, but House Republicans declined to clear the Senate plan for President Trump, prolonging the record agency shutdown even after G.O.P. leaders had agreed on a way to end it swiftly.
Meeting in a brief ceremonial session, the House opted not to take up spending legislation that the Senate had sent over about 90 minutes earlier, leaving a quick resolution to the stalemate out of reach for now. It was unclear whether the House, which is in a two-week recess, might consider the bill before its scheduled return in mid-April, or whether it would keep the department shuttered as Republicans work through a bitter intraparty divide over the bill.
April 2, 2026, 2:31 p.m. ET
House Republicans had a raucous conference call this afternoon with Speaker Mike Johnson in which far-right lawmakers vented about his plan to take up the Senate bill to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, according to a Republican lawmaker who was on the call.
The House, which is currently in the middle of a two-week recess, is not planning to return next week to consider that bill, the lawmaker said. That means the shutdown, for now, is expected to continue until at least the week of April 13, when the House is scheduled to return to Washington and could potentially vote on the measure.
April 2, 2026, 11:20 a.m. ET
In a post on social media, President Trump appeared to celebrate Congress’s progress in reaching a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, while also criticizing Democrats for not funding the department’s immigration agencies.
Trump then said he will “soon sign an order to pay ALL of the incredible employees at the Department of Homeland Security,” although it was unclear whether that meant Trump would go around Congress to fund each and every component of the department or just the immigration enforcement agencies.
April 2, 2026, 10:04 a.m. ET
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, criticized House Republicans for not quickly taking up and passing the Senate’s bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
With the House in recess until April 14, any one lawmaker can block efforts to pass the bill unanimously during brief procedural sessions being held this week and next. Some hard-line Republicans have bashed the plan and suggested they would block it.
“House Republicans own the longest government shutdown in history,” Schumer said in a statement.
April 2, 2026, 9:19 a.m. ET
The Senate’s bill to fund the Homeland Security Department is now formally back with the House. The shutdown of the department will continue at least through Monday, when the House will hold its next pro forma session.
April 2, 2026, 8:34 a.m. ET
The House just convened for a two-minute pro forma session in a mostly empty chamber. No action was taken on the Senate’s bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
A coalition of legal groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, saying the agency had allowed federal immigration agents to routinely enter homes to carry out searches and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia, contends that the Homeland Security Department and its subsidiary, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, broke with their longstanding practices last year in adopting an undisclosed policy that allowed agents to force their way into homes without judicial warrants. The suit asks that a federal judge invalidate the policy entirely.
April 2, 2026, 10:35 a.m. ET
Democrats have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over President Trump’s executive order seeking to build a national list of citizens that would determine voting eligibility and restrict mail ballots. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, argues that the Constitution gives Congress the power over elections, and that Trump’s order goes beyond his presidential authority. A coalition of voting rights groups followed with its own lawsuit against the order on Thursday.
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, accused Trump in a statement of trying to “undo a fair election with this outlandish executive order.”
Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the House minority leader, are plaintiffs on the Democrats’ lawsuit, along with the Democratic National Committee and organizations representing Democratic governors, senators and representatives."
Trump Has Discussed Firing Attorney General Pam Bondi - The New York Times
Trump Has Discussed Firing Attorney General Pam Bondi
"President Trump has not made a final decision, but he has floated the idea of replacing Ms. Bondi with Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator.
President Trump has discussed firing Attorney General Pam Bondi in recent days as he grows frustrated with her leadership at the Justice Department and her handling of the Epstein files, according to four people familiar with the conversations.
Mr. Trump has floated the idea of replacing Ms. Bondi with Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations by the president.
Mr. Trump has not made a final decision, and Ms. Bondi’s allies pointed to photos of her and the president traveling to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to dispute the notion that the president is planning to fire her.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job,” Mr. Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. A spokesman for Ms. Bondi referred to Mr. Trump’s statement.
But the president has been souring on Ms. Bondi for months. Among his top complaints is Ms. Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, which has become a political liability for Mr. Trump among his supporters. He has also complained about her shortcomings as a communicator and vented about what he sees as the department’s lack of aggressiveness in going after his foes, according to people who have spoken to him recently.
The House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Ms. Bondi last month to compel her to testify about the Justice Department’s investigation into Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Her deposition is scheduled for April 14, though she and Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the committee’s Republican chairman, have been working together to avoid the deposition, even though it is unclear whether it is legally possible to withdraw a subpoena.
Mr. Trump has also said the Justice Department under Ms. Bondi has not moved aggressively enough to prosecute his political enemies. In September, Mr. Trump wrote a social media post directed at Ms. Bondi in which he grumbled about the lack of indictments.
During his second term, Mr. Trump had been hesitant to oust members of his cabinet after his first term was marred by frequent firings and narratives of staff chaos. Some officials said Mr. Trump’s posture had shifted in recent weeks, buoyed by the smooth process of removing Kristi Noem from her role as secretary of homeland security and the straightforward confirmation process of Markwayne Mullin to replace her.
Mr. Trump has sent mixed signals about Ms. Bondi over the last year. He has complained about her privately, arguing that she has not been effective enough in pursuing his priorities. He has been particularly angry about the Justice Department’s failure to win cases involving his political opponents, including against the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and the New York attorney general, Letitia James.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has praised her loyalty in public and speaks with her often.
If Mr. Trump does fire Ms. Bondi, officials said, he has not made a final decision about who should replace her, though he has discussed elevating Mr. Zeldin.
Mr. Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who unsuccessfully ran to be his state’s governor, has been one of Mr. Trump’s most reliable foot soldiers. As the administrator of the E.P.A., charged with ensuring the protection of human health and the environment, Mr. Zeldin has made it his mission to promote Mr. Trump’s vision of “energy dominance.”
“He’s our secret weapon,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Zeldin in February at a White House event promoting the coal industry, adding, “He’s getting those approvals done in record setting time.”
Representatives for the E.P.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Glenn Thrush, Katie Rogers, Lisa Friedman and Maxine Joselow contributed reporting.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration."
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