The Israeli government has approved a budget framework for the preparation and conduct of trials for Hamas terrorists involved in the massacre on October 7, 2023. The amount in question is over 1 billion shekels, which will be allocated for the period from 2026 to 2029. The funds will be directed to the Ministry of Defense and the IDF to create separate judicial, security, logistical, and technological infrastructure.
This is not an ordinary criminal case and not just another terrorism trial.
Israel faces a challenge the country has not encountered on such a scale before: bringing hundreds of participants in the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust to trial, proving the personal guilt of each, giving victims a voice, and at the same time not turning the court into chaos of emotions, politics, and endless bureaucracy.
What exactly did the Israeli government approve
The decision was made on June 2, 2026. According to the approved plan, the budget will go towards preparing the judicial complex, premises for the prosecution, security systems, computer infrastructure, staffing, and supporting the process, which is expected to extend until 2029.
The amount seems enormous, but the scale of the case explains why it cannot be symbolic.
Hundreds of terrorists detained after the October 7 attack may find themselves in the dock. Among them are fighters from the ‘Nukhba’, Hamas’s elite unit, which participated in the border breach, attacks on kibbutzim, murders, kidnappings, and other crimes against civilians. According to Israeli and international publications, it could involve about 300-400 individuals, although the exact number depends on the investigation, qualifications, and future indictments.
Why this is not just ‘another trial’
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists and other groups invaded Israeli territory by land, air, and sea. As a result, about 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
Israeli society still lives within this trauma.
There are families waiting for the truth about the last minutes of their loved ones. There are survivors who will have to recount their experiences again. There are hostages who returned from captivity and families of those who did not return. There are soldiers, police officers, paramedics, ZAKA volunteers, kibbutz residents, Nova festival participants, residents of Sderot, Ofakim, and other localities whose testimonies will become part of a vast legal array.
Special court, death penalty, and the debate around the format
In May 2026, the Knesset passed a law creating a special military judicial framework for cases related to the October 7 attack. The vote passed with a rare result — 93 votes in favor and none against. The trials are to be held in Jerusalem, in an open format, with the possibility of public broadcasting and participation of victims.
This is a key point: the state wants not only to issue sentences but also to document the crimes.
For Israel, such a process will have not only legal significance. It will become part of national memory — as proof that the massacre on October 7 was not a ‘combat episode’, not ‘resistance’, and not a political abstraction, but a mass terrorist attack on people, families, children, the elderly, and peaceful settlements.
Is the death penalty possible
The topic of the death penalty has become one of the most sensitive parts of this case. In March 2026, the Knesset separately approved a law on the death penalty for terrorists, promoted, among others, by Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. This law sparked fierce debates in Israel and abroad, and human rights organizations have declared their intention to challenge it in the Supreme Court.
But in relation to the participants of the October 7 massacre, the legal structure is more complex than the simple formula ‘execute them all’.
The new judicial framework for the October 7 cases separately provides for the possibility of applying the death penalty within a special tribunal, but the final punishment will depend on the charges, evidence, composition of the court, appeals, and legal qualification of each defendant’s specific actions. International agencies also indicate that possible death sentences should undergo an appeals mechanism.
That is why the main task of the prosecution is not a loud statement, but an evidentiary base.
Where does the billion come from and why will the process be so expensive
A billion shekels is not just the walls of the future judicial complex. The money is needed for security, transportation of defendants, maintenance of detainees, medical support, interrogations, work of investigators, prosecutors, translators, technical specialists, archivists, IT systems, and security services.
The trial of the ‘Nukhba’ terrorists will require processing a huge amount of materials: surveillance camera footage, recordings from phones and bodycams of the terrorists themselves, testimonies of survivors, military data, police reports, materials on the kidnapped, forensic reports, and eyewitness testimonies.
Here, one cannot be limited to the general phrase ‘he was there’.
It is necessary to establish who exactly entered a specific house. Who shot. Who set fires. Who participated in the kidnapping. Who held hostages. Who raped, tortured, robbed, coordinated, filmed the crimes on video, or transmitted data to other participants in the attack.
Why the comparison with Nuremberg sounds but does not fully fit
The comparison with the Nuremberg Trials arises almost automatically: mass crime, historical trauma, the need to show the world documents, witnesses, and the mechanism of evil. But the Israeli task is, in some sense, even more detailed.
Nuremberg judged the top of the regime.
Israel must judge not only ideologues, commanders, and organizers but also specific perpetrators who physically entered homes, shot people, participated in kidnappings, and transmitted footage of violence as trophies.
For the Israeli audience, this is fundamental. For the families of the victims, the general formula ‘Hamas is guilty’ is not enough. They want to know who killed their loved ones, who gave the order, who filmed, who stood by, and who might try to hide behind the word ‘executor’ afterward.
This is where the meaning of an open trial appears.
NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency views the future trial not as a technical procedure, but as part of Israel’s struggle for the right to truth. After October 7, the world too quickly began to argue about ‘context’, forgetting about the bodies in kibbutzim, burned houses, kidnapped children, murdered families, and people whom terrorists pursued not for form, but for the very fact of their Israeli and Jewish life.
An open trial is needed not only by Israel
If the court sessions are indeed public and documented, it will be an important response to those who are already trying to blur the memory of October 7.
In Israel, they well understand the price of denial. First, terrorists film crimes on cameras. Then their supporters call these shots ‘propaganda’. Then international activists demand ‘balance’ where it is about the mass murder of civilians.
The trial must proceed so that future deniers have as little room for manipulation as possible.
Not with slogans. Not with shouting. Not with revenge.
With evidence.
What will happen next
Until 2029, Israel will have to create infrastructure that will withstand not just one loud day in the headlines, but years of procedural work. This will be a difficult path: with legal disputes, international criticism, internal political clashes, and painful testimonies.
But the state, having survived October 7, has virtually no other path.
If Hamas terrorists turned the murder of Israelis into a spectacle for their cameras, Israel must respond not with the same spectacle, but with a trial where every frame, every voice, every document, and every verdict will carry weight.
For the families of the deceased, this will not bring back their loved ones.
For the survivors, it will not cancel the night that continues inside their memory.
But for the country, it can become a moment when pain turns into legally formalized truth. And such truth is needed by Israel no less than punishment.