Pentagon says Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan's execution will be livestreamed

The United States Department of Defense intends to broadcast live the firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former US Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in a shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009. According to an Associated Press report carried by The Times of Israel, Pentagon officials confirmed on Thursday that the execution would be streamed and said further details would be released later. The Army had announced earlier in the week that the sentence would be carried out at Fort Hood on Dec. 3.

The confirmation followed remarks by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who told the conservative television channel Real America's Voice on Wednesday that the execution would be public and that people would be "able to watch it". As quoted by Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Hegseth said the public needed to grasp that there are "serious consequences" for acts of this kind. Reuters, in a report published by Haaretz, described the plan as an unprecedented broadcast of an execution in the United States.

The 2009 Fort Hood shooting

Fort Hood is a US Army base in Texas. The Israeli Telegram news channel Abu Ali Express reported that on 5 November 2009 Hasan, then serving as a psychiatrist in the US military, entered a soldier processing centre on the base and opened fire with a handgun. The same channel said a police officer at the scene shot him and that he was left paralysed as a result.

The reports agree that 13 people were killed. They differ on the number of wounded: the Associated Press account says 32 people were injured, while Abu Ali Express puts the figure at 30.

Why Israeli outlets are following the case

Several Hebrew-language outlets highlighted Hasan's family background. Abu Ali Express and the Telegram channel News.co.il both reported that his parents emigrated to the United States from the area of Ramallah, the Palestinian city in the West Bank; Abu Ali Express named the town as al-Bireh, which lies next to Ramallah. Ynet, the website of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, described him as a terrorist of Palestinian origin, and noted that 17 years have passed since the attack.

Abu Ali Express also reported that President Donald Trump recently signed off on the execution. That detail does not appear in the other reports.

A rare military execution

The US military operates its own justice system, separate from civilian federal and state courts, and its executions are rare. The Associated Press report said this would be the first military execution in over 65 years. Ynet gave the gap as 65 years.

Execution by firing squad, in which a group of armed personnel fire at the condemned person simultaneously, is itself uncommon in the United States. The AP report said Hegseth's description of a public execution, especially one carried out by such a violent method, had prompted further questions, though the available text of that report breaks off before setting them out.

Timing and location

The reports agree the execution is planned for Fort Hood, the site of the shooting. Ynet went further, reporting that it would take place at the same place and the same hour as the attack. Israel Hayom and the AP both give the date as December 3, and News.co.il said it would happen in about two months.

Early criticism

Truzman, a researcher at FDD, a Washington think tank, called the decision a bad idea. He argued that broadcasting the execution was unlikely to deter extremists and that the footage could instead serve as propaganda glorifying Hasan, adding that he expected groups such as al-Qaeda to use it in future videos. His view is an individual assessment and not an official position.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports explains how the livestream would work: on which platform it would be carried, whether it would be open to anyone or restricted, or whether it would be delayed or edited. Pentagon officials said more details would follow. The reports do not describe the legal process that led to the execution date, any remaining appeals, or whether Hasan's lawyers or victims' families have responded. The discrepancy over the number of wounded, 32 or 30, is not resolved in the material, and only Ynet reports that the execution is timed to the hour of the original attack.