Just in time for Pesach, the Knesset passed a law allowing for the death penalty for terrorists, approving the bill in its second and third readings. The death penalty will now become the default punishment for terror-motivated murder. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voted in favor, joined by members of Yisrael Bateinu. MK Benny Gantz and members of Degel Hatorah voted against. MK Avi Maoz was absent.

For many, the passage of this law is long overdue. For decades, the Rebbe warned repeatedly that imprisoning terrorists was a strategic and moral mistake.

Former Israeli Consul General Tzvi Caspi relates how he heard it directly from the Rebbe: “You are also making a mistake by capturing terrorists and putting them in prison. These terrorists come to kill, and ‘one who comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.'”

The Rebbe then added a prediction that proved devastatingly accurate: “You will pay dearly for putting them in prison, because in the future they will come back to you with various demands for release deals and exchanges.”

The new law transforms the death penalty from a theoretical option into a practical sentencing tool, with key distinctions between regions. In Yehudah and Shomron, courts no longer need unanimous approval to impose the sentence, and there is no option for pardon or commutation. Within the Green Line, courts may impose either the death penalty or life imprisonment for those who intentionally kill with the aim of harming the state.

The defense minister will determine whether suspects from Yehudah and Shomron are tried in military or civilian courts. Those sentenced to death will be held separately, with execution carried out within 90 days following an automatic appeal. Under the previous law, military courts technically permitted the death penalty but required unanimous judicial approval, a threshold that was never once met.

The bill was initiated by MK Limor Son Har-Melech and led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, advanced through the National Security Committee chaired by MK Zvika Fogel.

“We promised and we delivered,” Ben Gvir said at the vote. “The State of Israel is changing the rules of the game today: whoever murders Jews will not continue to breathe and enjoy prison conditions. This is a day of justice for the murdered, a day of deterrence for our enemies. No more revolving door for terrorists -but a clear decision. Whoever chooses terror chooses death.”

MK Fogel added: “The law approved today is not a law of revenge or anger, but a law of a state’s responsibility to its citizens. In a reality where Israel faces murderous terror, our obligation is clear — to protect Israeli citizens, not with slogans but with action.”

MK Son Har-Melech, who lost a family member to terror, said: “No more cycles of murder, imprisonment, and release in deals — but a clear determination: whoever chooses to murder Jews because they are Jews forfeits the right to live. This is a message of justice, deterrence, and national responsibility.”

The Rebbe had laid out this argument very clearly years earlier. At the Zos Chanukah farbrengen of 5746, the Rebbe explained and warned:

“In the areas of Yehudah and Shomron, which are under military rule, terrorists roam freely who have already killed dozens of soldiers – and ‘one Jewish life’ is ‘an entire world,’ and certainly dozens of Jewish lives. Naturally, this weakens the Arabs’ fear of the Israeli army and encourages them to continue acts of terror.

“The advice offered by those ‘wise men’ to strike fear into the terrorists is not by capturing and punishing them – no terrorist fears sitting in an Israeli prison. On the contrary, there he receives food, drink, and housing, ready-made, which he doesn’t get in his own village. And within a short time, a prisoner exchange deal will be made, in which he will be released along with hundreds of terrorists like him, in exchange for three to five Jews – as has happened before, and has become something of a routine.”

That routine, though still only partially addressed, is finally beginning to change.

VIDEO: Ben Gvir promises to install the death penalty last year in 770