GAZA, Palestinian Territories —
Hamas announced on Sunday that it executed five people, including two for
“collaboration” with Israel.
اضافة اعلان
The executions for collaboration are the first
carried out in the Palestinian coastal enclave for more than five years.
“On Sunday morning, the death sentence was carried
out against two condemned over collaboration with the occupation (Israel), and
three others in criminal cases,” Hamas said in a statement.
It added that the defendants had previously been
given “their full rights to defend themselves”.
Gaza’s interior ministry provided the initials and
years of birth of the five executed Palestinians but withheld their full names.
The two executed over “collaboration” with Israel
were men born in 1978 and 1968.
The older of the two was a resident of Khan Yunis in
the south of the blockaded Gaza Strip. He was convicted of supplying Israel in
1991 with “information on men of the resistance, their residence, ... and the
location of rocket launch pads”, Hamas said.
The second was condemned to death for supplying
Israel in 2001 with intelligence “that led to the targeting and martyrdom of
citizens” by Israeli occupation forces, the statement added.
The three others executed had been convicted of
murder, the statement said.
Sven Kuehn Von Burgsdorff, the EU’s ambassador to
the
Palestinian territories, expressed concern over the executions.
“Hamas must respect Palestine’s obligations under
international human rights law,” he said, noting the Ramallah-based Palestinian
Authority’s “moratorium on capital punishment”.
“Executions are cruel and inhuman and can under no
circumstances be justified as they deny the victims human dignity,” he said in
a statement.
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human
Rights Watch, described the executions as “abhorrent”.
First executions in years
Gaza’s
Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the executions were “in violation of Palestine’s
international obligations”.
The center said it “demands the authorities in the
Gaza Strip do not use the death penalty, and replace it with life imprisonment
with hard labor”.
Hamas has in recent years sentenced numerous people
to death for collaboration with Israel, but the executions announced Sunday are
the first carried out since May 2017.
While Hamas keeps the death penalty on the statute
books, Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank have not carried out
such a sentence in recent years.
Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas has signed up to
the UN treaty opposing the death penalty.
Abbas’s Fatah movement and Hamas have been divided
since 2007, following the outbreak of fighting between the Palestinian
factions.
The Palestinian Authority operates in the West Bank,
home to nearly 3 million Palestinians who live alongside 475,000 Israeli
settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be
illegal under international law.
Hamas, meanwhile, rules over 2.3 million Palestinians
who have lived under a crippling Israeli-led blockade for 15 years.
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