The release committee on Wednesday rejected the request for early release by three Arab citizens of Israel, who murdered three IDF soldiers back in 1992.
The three Islamic Jihad linked terrorists from Wadi Ara, members of the Agrebya clan, infiltrated a training base in the southern Carmel Mountains and used pitchforks to murder three IDF trainees as they slept, in a horrific attack that was termed the Night of Pitchforks.
All three became heroes among the Palestinian Arab public, with Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas demanding their release in the last round of peace talks that lasted from 2013 to 2014. They ended up not being among the 78 terrorists released in "gestures" by the coalition government.
The Almagor terror victim organization welcomed the decision to reject the request for release, but expressed deep concern the request was allowed in the first place.
"We demand to prevent any option of early release or sentence reduction for murderous terrorists through an amendment to the law," said the group in a statement.
"The very discussion over the releases creates an unnecessary tension among the families of the murdered," stressed Almagor.
"The time has come that it be made clear that life sentences for terror will indeed be life sentences, and are not up to pardoning committees or release deals. This harms the deterrence and the general effort against the murderous terror that is going wild."
Israel already has a death penalty on the law books, although it has only been implemented once in the case of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, who was put to death back in 1962.
This July the Knesset voted against a death penalty law for terrorists, with only the six Yisrael Beytenu MKs supporting the move as members of the coalition, which is widely termed as being right-wing, voted it down.