In April 1961, as the trial of Adolf Eichmann opened in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt observed that the proceedings would be pulled between two competing forces: history and justice. The temptation was obvious. The crimes were immense, the victims innumerable, and the historical significance overwhelming. Yet Arendt insisted that a criminal trial could not become a stage for history alone. "Justice demands that the accused be prosecuted, defended, and judged." The task of a court, she argued, was not to put an entire people, ideology, or tragedy on trial, but to adjudicate the responsibility of specific individuals for specific crimes.
Sixty-five years later, Israel faces a challenge of a different scale but similar nature.
On 11 May 2026, the Knesset adopted by a 93-vote majority (out of 120 Members of Parliament, none opposing), legislation establishing a special military tribunal in Jerusalem to prosecute individuals accused of participating in the atrocities committed on 7 October 2023. The law seeks to create a judicial framework capable of addressing mass murder, hostage-taking, torture, sexual violence, as war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and terrorism committed simultaneously across multiple locations and against thousands of victims on Israeli territory and also after that date against hostages, missing persons and their families.
The law is of historical significance. It will determine how the “7/10 trials” will be accepted in Israeli society and internationally.
Can there be justice in Jerusalem? And equally important: will there be justice in Jerusalem?
The answer will depend not only on the guilt of the accused or the suffering of the victims, but on the procedural integrity of the trials themselves. It will depend on whether defendants receive meaningful opportunities to defend themselves, whether victims are treated with dignity and respect, whether evidentiary adaptations remain compatible with due process, and whether the proceedings will be, and are perceived as, independent, impartial, and fair.
A broad impact
The stakes extend beyond the courtroom. The future October-7 trials will shape how Israeli society understands one of the most traumatic events in its history. They will also influence how the international community evaluates Israel's capacity to prosecute mass atrocity crimes through domestic institutions. That being said, all states addressing mass atrocities committed in its territory face similar challenges.
This is not the primary purpose of the tribunal. Criminal proceedings exist first and foremost to enforce public order, establish accountability, provide justice to victims, and guarantee fair trials for defendants. Yet the broader significance of the proceedings cannot be ignored. Whether intentionally or not, Israel now finds itself with a rare opportunity: to demonstrate how its legal system responds to mass atrocity while remaining committed to the principles that distinguish justice from vengeance.
Trials are foreseen to begin in 18 months against hundreds or thousands of individuals currently detained in Israeli detention centers. The exact number of suspects to face trial is still held confidential by Israeli authorities. Defendants are foreseeably low or mid-ranking individuals who allegedly took a direct and active part in the planned, widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, penetrating into Israeli territory, against rural villages (kibbutz), at least two main cities, Sderot and Ofakim, and four music festivals, the best known of them being ‘The Nova Festival’. More senior perpetrators have been targeted in combat in Gaza or are at-large, highlighting the need for joint investigative teams and states cooperation to bring them to accountability.
Why Was New Legislation Necessary?
The May 11, 2026 legislation emerged from a recognition that the atrocities of October 7 presented challenges that existing Israeli criminal procedures were not designed to address, both in magnitude and nature. The attacks generated multiple crime scenes, thousands of potential defendants, hundreds of thousands of direct victims (including 330.000 that were displaced), extensive digital documentation, indications of extermination, mass murder, sexual violence, torture, hostage-taking, enforced disappearance, and crimes potentially amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism and genocide. The scale and nature of the events forced lawmakers to confront a fundamental question: could ordinary criminal procedures adequately respond to mass atrocity crimes?
Several concerns motivated the creation of a dedicated legal framework.
First, as noted during the legislative discussions, the attacks were committed under circumstances in which traditional forensic methods could not always be applied as expected in conventional criminal investigations. Crime scenes were often fragmented, contaminated, or altered by the realities of war. At the same time, the attacks generated unprecedented quantities of digital material, including recordings produced by perpetrators themselves. The challenge would not be a lack of evidence but rather determining how such evidence should be assessed and presented in court.
Second, the law responds to difficulties associated with attributing responsibility in cases involving organized mass violence and co-perpetration. As observed by practitioners involved in the legislative process, it may be possible to establish that a defendant was present at a specific attack site while remaining difficult to prove participation in a particular individual act. The attacks were characterized by collective action carried out by numerous perpetrators operating simultaneously across multiple locations. Such circumstances raise questions familiar to international criminal tribunals regarding modes of liability, and co-participation in organized, systematic or widespread criminal enterprises. The law therefore seeks to create a framework capable of addressing responsibility for atrocities committed as part of a broader criminal campaign rather than solely through isolated acts of violence. It nevertheless leans on existing modes of liability in Israeli law such as co-perpetration and organized crime.
Third, the law represents an attempt to adapt domestic criminal procedures to realities more commonly encountered in international criminal justice, while preserving existing laws as much as possible, avoiding retroactivity, and ensuring fair trial rights.
Finally, the legislation seeks to address practical concerns regarding the management of proceedings expected to involve hundreds of defendants, thousands of hearing days, extensive evidentiary records, and substantial security requirements. These logistical considerations contributed to the decision to establish a specialized tribunal operating within a military framework while incorporating civilian judicial expertise through the appointment of serving or retired district court judges. In fact, the travaux préparatoires emphasize that opting for a military structural framework did not alter the civilian nature of substantive law applied, as the law explicitly names existing criminal law as the applicable law (including a 1948 Genocide Law, anti-terrorism laws, common criminal law and procedure where applicable). Therefore, legislators emphasized that opting for a military structure did not detract from the civilian nature of trials, while war crimes against soldiers hors de combat including sexual violence, are recognized. To illustrate, many prosecutors and judges would be experienced, acting or former civilian prosecutors and judges.
The necessity of the law, therefore, did not arise merely from the gravity of the crimes. Rather, it stemmed from the recognition that the existing legal architecture was designed for ordinary criminality, whereas October 7 presented a form of organized mass violence unprecedented in Israeli reality.
Where the Law Innovates
The law is significant not only because it creates a tribunal. It is also important in that it introduces substantive legal developments that bring Israeli law closer to contemporary international criminal law.
Equally significant is the law's recognition of acts of sexual violence. Certain acts committed during the attacks did not fit neatly within the existing domestic definitions of rape or sexual abuse. The decision to recognize sexual violence as a distinct category of criminal conduct reflects an understanding that some forms of violence are committed precisely because of their sexual nature and therefore require explicit legal recognition. In doing so, the legislature aligned Israeli law more closely with contemporary international criminal law concerning sexual violence amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity and other international crimes.
Death penalty and fair trials
The May 11 Law should not be confused with recent separate political initiatives concerning capital punishment in Israel. In particular, it is not the "Death Penalty Law" promoted by the ‘Minister of Police’, Itamar Ben Gvir. That proposal has generated substantial legal criticism and will not apply to October 7 crimes.
The reality is both simpler and more complex. The possibility of capital punishment already exists under Israeli military law and will apply to 7/10 trials. A death sentence may only be requested by the prosecution, requires unanimity among all three judges, and is subject to automatic appellate review. Up to now Israeli practice shows the extreme rarity of capital punishment. Since 1948, only two executions have occurred. One was Adolf Eichmann in 1962. The other, in June 1948, was against an Israeli officer, Meir Tabiensky, wrongly convicted of treason during the 1948 War of Independence, in what was a drumhead court-martial rather than an actual trial. The accused was recognized innocent post mortem.
The May 11 Law reflects a central challenge familiar to every jurisdiction confronted with mass atrocity: how to adapt criminal procedure to extraordinary crimes while preserving the guarantees of a fair trial. The underlying principle of the new law is neither exceptional justice nor emergency justice. It is the adaptation of procedural rules to unprecedented circumstances while maintaining fairness, judicial independence, and defendants' rights.
What does this mean in practice? The Israeli legal system is a Common Law system following strict rules of admissibility of evidence. However, other rule-based democracies of Romano-Germanic legal tradition may come to the rescue. This is especially true regarding admissibility rules, whereby nearly all material may be deemed admissible, providing varying probative value or weight, and relying on the judges’ discretionary powers, as long as they are lawful, for example are not the fruit of an unlawful act such as torture.
A better and safer Place for Victims
One of the law's most significant innovations is its recognition that victims must occupy a meaningful place within the proceedings. The existing ‘Law on Victim Rights in the Criminal Procedure’ will apply to the 7/10 trials. This law does not go as far as Civil Law systems where victims have a status in trial and are represented in Court by counsel. It does allow victims the right of privileged information into the file, viewing the indictment, consultation on the sentence or requests for early release. However, the new law goes beyond by establishing a dedicated focal point for October 7 victims within the Ministry of Justice. This institutional innovation reflects an understanding that proceedings of this scale require continuous communication between authorities and victims and cannot rely exclusively on ordinary prosecutorial structures. Our constant position in the legislative debates is that victims must be effectively informed of developments affecting them, receive information before sensitive details concerning them become public, be given opportunities to communicate concerns, transmit relevant information and evidence, and participate meaningfully in decisions directly affecting their rights and interests. Authorities will proactively seek the position of victims. For instance before a hearing sets out the details of the harm they suffered or by their loved ones, victims will be able to communicate their concerns, in relation with the publicity or confidentiality or their wish to be present during the hearing and under what terms. There is still much to do in order to implement existing or improved victims rights in this specific criminal procedure. This will include specific bylaws, training and involvement by civil society and victims representatives, to streamline information and rights. Victims must not be made invisible at any stage, and we will continue to enhance their role and ensure fewer blind spots with the authorities.
The greatest tension the future tribunal may face concerns the relationship between the principle of publicity of the judicial process and victims’ protection.
The public dimension of the October 7 proceedings will be, as we observed during the legislative debates, "on steroids." Foreseeable attention to the trials, the trauma that will erupt once again as only two illustrative challenges will strain the capacity to carry out trials serenely. Special measures should be implemented to balance the expected over-exposure of these trials and thorough thought is still needed to ensure understandable longing or curiosity of the public (in Israel and outside) does not overburden the process and victims, at the center of the facts that will unravel before the court. Transparency serves indispensable purposes. Public hearings strengthen accountability, democratic oversight and public confidence. They contribute to the creation of a historical record and demonstrate that justice is not being administered behind closed doors.
Yet October 7 presents a unique challenge because publicity itself formed part of the crime. The attacks were designed not only to kill but also to broadcast killing. Perpetrators entered communities equipped with GoPro cameras. Murders, kidnappings, torture and humiliation were recorded and disseminated in real time. Victims' own social media accounts were used to livestream sadistic treatment and executions they subdued. Families witnessed murders, abductions and assaults through direct digital exposure. Visibility itself became a weapon.
The violence was therefore not solely physical. It was also psychological, digital and communicative. We contend it amounted to ‘digital terrorism and torture’. The deliberate dissemination of suffering was part of the attack. The attack was then followed by a concerted and widespread campaign of denial (there is record of some 20,000 social media accounts activated on October 6, 2023, disseminating the same ‘fake news’ in the hybrid war, including over the narrative itself). This denial, as well as the systematic enforced disappearance and hostage-taking which created the need for a life-saving media, diplomatic, civil society and victim-led campaign imposed yet another cruel dilemma on victims and their families: over-exposure. Finally, an entire society and international community will be watching, and we hope trials will bring some clarity in the existing moral fog, navigating the extreme over-politicization in this specific atrocity situation. This creates a special need to protect victims before, during and after the criminal trials.
Publicity and victims’ protection
The practice of international criminal courts and tribunals may offer a viable model, although criticism exists there too. Proceedings before international courts routinely operate under a presumption of publicity while preserving mechanisms for victim and witness protection. Public galleries, public transmission of hearings and public access to proceedings coexist with protective measures such as delayed broadcasting, redactions, anonymity orders and closed sessions, reversing the onus of preserving victim rights and the integrity of the procedure, from the victims to the parties to the trial – judges, prosecution and defence – based on specific rules of the court.
At Israel’s new tribunal measures exist to protect victims and witnesses while preserving the principle of publicity of trials and are expected to be the object of upcoming bylaws.
This balance is especially important because many victims continue to rebuild their lives. Hostages have returned alive or for burial. Entire communities continue to reconstruct social, economic and emotional foundations shattered by the attacks. The tribunal must avoid reproducing the harms that it seeks to address.
Overall, this is a good law. It enables trials to take place, is cognisant of fair trial rights, and will perhaps help a wounded nation to look beyond atrocity and rebuild. Several additional bylaws are expected after which the legislator will rest. It is the prosecutors – in military uniform but in substance, district prosecutors who were leading investigations and prosecutions from the beginning – , the judges, the defence attorneys, the victims’ representatives who will have the responsibility of implementing existing laws, using their past experience, discretionary powers and prerogatives and hopefully their best judgement and integrity when delivering justice and at the same time, serve historical justice. It will not be the only 7/10 trials, as criminal proceedings are also expected in the US, France, Germany, Argentina and The Hague – to name the main active jurisdictions investigating 7/10 atrocities – but it will be the trials closest to the greatest number of victims and victim communities.
Yael Vias Gvirsman is the founding Director of the International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic at the Harry Radzyner Law School, Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. A lawyer specializing in international criminal law, she founded the NGO October 7 justice-without borders, representing hundreds of victims and survivors of the October 7, 2023 massacre. She took an active part in the legislative debates in the law proposal within the Constitution and Law Knesset Committee.
