This is the first time this has happened in about five years. Hamas, an armed Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, executed this Sunday morning, September 4, five Palestinians, including two for “collaboration” with Israel. The other three were convicted because of “criminal cases,” Hamas said in a statement, saying that the convicts had all “prior obtained their full right to defend themselves” before local justice.
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Michael Paul
The Interior Ministry of the Gaza Strip gave few details of the five sentenced to death. They were identified only by their initials or their year and date of birth. Two of them were executed for collaborating with Israel.
The eldest, born in 1968, was hanged this morning for having provided Israel since 1991 with information on Palestinian fighters and also on the location of rocket manufacturing and launching sites. Another was shot for providing information from 2001 that allegedly led to the “martyrdom” of Palestinian nationals.
A first since 2017
The other three people executed had been sentenced to death for murder, it says. The last known executions in Gaza date back to 2017. In recent years, authorities in Gaza have sentenced several people to death for various crimes or “collaboration” with Israel, but these sentences have not been carried out.
Hamas justified these executions on the basis of the Revolutionary Code of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which it is not a member.