The Arab League held an emergency session in Cairo today to address what Arab states are calling dangerous Israeli escalations in occupied Jerusalem.

The meeting, chaired by Bahrain, was convened at the request of Palestine with the support of member states. It focused on Israeli actions against Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy sites, as well as a law recently passed by the Israeli Knesset allowing the execution of Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian Ambassador to the Arab League Muhannad Al-Aklouk called for urgent Arab, Islamic and international action, including political, diplomatic and legal measures, to confront violations. The meeting also addressed the death penalty law passed by the Israeli Knesset on March 30th. The legislation amends military court rules in the occupied West Bank, making death by hanging the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis while explicitly excluding Israeli citizens from the same punishment.

Though the death penalty exists in Israeli law, it has been carried out only once since the 1962 execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Until now, imposing capital punishment required a unanimous decision from a panel of judges, a threshold never met in any terrorism case.