Those who violate the law, which is based on legislation that makes it punishable to deny the Holocaust, can be sentenced to at least five years in prison, according to Israeli media.
This applies to all those who "say or write something that denies what happened in the massacre on October 7, with the intention of defending the terrorist organization Hamas and their partners, expressing sympathy or identifying themselves with them".
Israel says with a clear and loud voice: The denial of the atrocities on October 7 will not be met with silence, says Oded Forer from the secular right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, who submitted the bill last year.
However, the law is also being criticized.
Criminalizing statements should be reserved for extreme cases where there are real and immediate threats of violence, says Gil Gan-Mor of the human rights organization Association for Civil Rights in Israel to The Times of Israel.
