MK Limor Livnat on Monday proposed a bill according to which security prisoners could only be released upon approval by 80 members of Knesset. The bill was intended to increase the difficulty of releasing jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti as part of a prisoner swap.

The bill would amend Basic Law on the President, which dictates that the president has the authority to release a life prisoner convicted of murder who acted from national or terrorist motives. If approved, the release of such a prisoner would require a majority in Knesset.

The goal of the bill, which 24 MKs from right-wing parties have already signed, is to give the Knesset authority to supervise pardons given to criminals from nationalist or terrorist backgrounds, and whose release harms the deterrence element against terrorist activity.

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Opposition leader Benjamin Netenyahu (Likud) was among the members of Knesset who signed the bill.

Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, said "I would be interested to know if Limor Livnat would initiate the bill if one of her sons was rotting in captivity in Lebanon."

"This is delusional. We know what it is to be bereaved, and nobody has a monopoly over that, not even MK Livnat," he said, adding, "we are talking about live soldiers, who were sent by the state and didn't go to Lebanon and Gaza voluntarily."

The forum for bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families strongly opposed the initiative. In a letter to Livnat, they said the bill issued "a severe blow to the possibility of agreement with our neighbors and the advancement of appeasement process in the region."

The forum called for MKs to "recognize the important duty of security prisoners, and to allow them to take part and lead appeasement and agreement processes between two nations."