Israel’s Knesset passed a law on Nov. 7 allowing it to deport family members of Palestinian terrorists to the war-torn Gaza Strip or elsewhere.
The measure is likely to be challenged in court. Eran Shamir-Borer, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute and a former international law expert for the Israeli military, said it would likely be struck down there, based on previous cases regarding deportations.
“The bottom line is this is completely nonconstitutional and a clear conflict to Israel’s core values,” Shamir-Borer said.
The law’s explanatory notes say the Israel Defense Forces had found terrorists with Israeli citizenship worried about their actions’ impact on their families, and that the law would thus serve as a deterrent.
The law passed despite security and constitutional concerns expressed by the Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency. Its representatives reportedly warned in closed-door Knesset meetings last month that expelling terrorists’ families could heighten security tensions.
It expressly applies to Israeli citizens, who would retain their citizenship even after being deported. The term of deportation would range from seven years to 15 years for citizens, and from 10 years to 20 years for legal residents.
It is unclear if it applies to residents of the disputed West Bank, which many Israelis refer to as Judea and Samaria.
The vote passed on its third reading, at 3 a.m. after hours of fiery debate.
“Yigal Amir’s family will not be deported anywhere,” opposition member Merav Michaeli, referring to the assassin of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said.
Opposition member Mickey Levy, taking a similar tack, asked whether the government would deport National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s family, referring to Ben Gvir’s conviction in his youth for incitement to violence and supporting a terror group.
A temporary five-year measure also passed, by a 55–33 vote, enabling imprisonment of youths younger than 14 years old who are convicted of homicide as part of an act of terrorism. The age of criminal responsibility in Israel is 12 years old, but prison sentences normally are imposed only at age 14.
Knesset legal advisers warned that the Supreme Court could interpret the law as collective punishment. They noted that existing laws already address the accountability of family members who fail to report criminal activities, including terrorism. And they said expulsion represents a harsher penalty than the incarceration that the terrorists themselves face. They argued that the law should be applied to the perpetrators rather than their families.
Israel has long used home demolitions as a punishment for terror attacks, prompting objections by Israeli civil rights groups.
The supreme court, if called upon to review the law, is independent and considered much more liberal than Netanyahu’s conservative ruling coalition. In a country without a constitution, it can strike down laws based on “reasonableness.”
Israeli conservatives have long objected to what they regard as the court’s overreach, much as some U.S. conservatives have criticized the U.S. Supreme Court in recent decades for what they see as legislating from the bench.
Netanyahu’s plan to strip the court of its power to interpret laws based on reasonableness became the focal point for daily demonstrations lasting nearly a year in 2023. The demonstrations halted only with the Hamas terrorist group’s surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which began the current war.
The reform plan also would give the government more control over how the judges of the supreme court are appointed.
