Daniel Okev could be released from prison as early as next week, after serving two-thirds of a 20-year jail sentence for the murder of Max Hunter and the attempted murder of Charlotte Gibb in 1997.
Towards the end of a holiday in Israel, the couple was hitchhiking in Israel's southern desert when Okev stopped to offer them a lift.
After chatting in a friendly manner to his passengers, he pulled into a remote lay-by for a cigarette break. As they got out of the car, Okev suddenly pulled out a gun, shooting and killing Hunter, a 22-year-old law graduate from Banstead in Surrey, before firing three bullets at Gibb, then 20, of Deeping St James in Lincolnshire.
During his trial, Okev claimed that he committed the crime while suffering a flashback from his time in an undercover Israeli hit squad that carried out the assassinations of suspected Palestinian militants.
Recommending his early release, the Israeli Prison Service's parole board said it was impressed by Okev's "honest remorse", his good behaviour in prison and the progress he had shown under psychiatric treatment.
"The psychiatric treatment and diagnoses that the prisoner underwent during his incarceration have led him, he says, to understand the link between his military experience in a unit where he assassinated terrorists and the murder and aggravated assault ... which occurred without any reasonable cause", it continued.
Under the terms approved by the parole board, he would have to appear at a police station once a week, would be under house arrest in the evenings and would not be allowed to leave the country without permission from the board.
The office of the Israeli attorney general has a week to decide whether to challenge the recommendation for parole. Officials said that prosecutors had yet to review the case.
