(11) The act was carried out within the framework of the activity of a criminal organization or terrorist organization and in order to promote the goals of that organization...".
According to the explanatory notes to the proposed Penal Law (Amendment No. 124) (Homicide Offenses), the 2015 Appeal Committee (Search Order / Government Entry Order 972, 5776, November 16, 2015), the legislature's intention in enacting this section was that:
"The aggravating circumstances proposed to be included in the section include the most serious murders, those that express special moral severity, based on legislation in other countries around the world, among other things. The determination of the offense of murder in aggravated circumstances expresses the special weight of the considerations of guilt and the condemnation for it in these cases, which are expressed both by way of special labeling of the act of murder as murder in aggravated circumstances and by way of mandatory punishment" (p. 170 of the bill).
The first circumstance enumerated in subsection (1) above is very similar to the definition of premeditated murder in the old version of the law, and the Supreme Court even defined it as "the equivalent of the offense of murder under section 300(a)(2) after the amendment" (Criminal Appeal 3880/17 Ziadat v. State of Israel [published in Nevo] (December 31, 2019)). This was also the intention of the legislature, as expressed in the explanatory notes to the bill:
"It is proposed to establish as an aggravating circumstance a situation in which the act was committed after planning or an actual process of weighing and formulating a decision to kill. This is a distinct case that expresses special severity. It should be emphasized that these are not only cases of assassination that is planned for some time in advance, but cases in which the murderer considered and decided to kill his victim, as opposed to cases in which the desire to kill was created spontaneously and in the heat of the moment. The existing law sought to express this idea by means of the term "first intent." However, the existing wording of the offense of murder, in the context of premeditated intent... problematic and cumbersome" (ibid., at p. 170).