Hamas executions against its own people is back in the news.
Hamas has allegedly executed 20 Palestinians who participated in an anti-war protest in the Gaza Strip, according to Channel 10. The Palestinians allegedly were rounded up by Hamas and summarily executed as alleged Israeli collaborators.
There were also reports on July 28 that Hamas has allegedly executed 30 suspected collaborators so far, but it is not clear whether that number includes the 20 anti-war protestors.
Unnamed Palestinian security sources in Gaza told Palestine Press News Agency that Hamas has reportedly managed to apprehend dozens of suspected spies in the northern neighborhood of Shejaiya and summarily executed them after a short investigation. The sources allegedly said that many of the suspects were caught with weapons, telephones, and SIM cards from the Israeli cell provider Orange.
Hamas has undertaken numerous anti-collaboration campaigns in the Gaza Strip over the past few years, offering amnesty to repentant Israeli spies. In May, the Hamas government executed two condemned collaborators for divulging information that Israel used to kill two Palestinians.
In November 2012, Hamas men on motorcycles were filmed dragging the bodies of accused collaborators through the streets of Gaza.
Human Rights Watch and other watchdogs have condemned the summary execution of collaborators in Gaza.
Civilians in Gaza spoke to Palestinian Press of “suspicious men” that were reportedly attacking Hamas operatives in Shejaiya and indicating the homes of Hamas members to be struck by Israeli aircraft or artillery.
Last week, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported that collaborators in Gaza were allegedly using “special signals” to communicate with Israeli aircraft. They reportedly were firing tracer bullets near homes that were later targeted by the Israeli Air Force.
Hamas’s Interior Ministry reported on July 15 that in the midst of Operation Protective Edge, the Internal Security Agency managed to thwart a number of subversive attacks aimed at “our people and our resistance.”
Ministry spokesman Iyad Al-Bozom threatened on his Facebook page that “any betrayal or cowardly act against our people” would lead to “the harshest punishment under Palestinian law.”
“The eyes of the Internal Security Agency are dispersed throughout the Gaza Strip to maintain security and protect the home front,” Al-Bozom wrote.
On July 28, Fatah in the Gaza Strip allegedly condemned Hamas for placing a number of Fatah members under house arrest across the Gaza Strip since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge.
According to the Palestinian Authority’s official WAFA news agency, Fatah allegedly appealed to Hamas to stop arresting its members, and was told that the detentions were being carried out by individuals and were not Hamas official policy, but nevertheless, the house arrests continued.
Fatah called on Hamas in a communiqué to stop harassing its members in Gaza, saying, “at the moment what we need most is national solidarity to strengthen the home front.”
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup in June 2007 and killed or banished most of Fatah’s members in the Gaza Strip.
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