Mass execution of suspected informers in Gaza


August 22, 2014
Sarah Benton

1) Report by AP, 2) censure by the PCHR, 3) report by The Guardian.


Tweeted photo of some of the suspected informers and their executioners

Hamas publicly executes 18 alleged spies in new crackdown

A Hamas run website suggested a link between the killing of the alleged informers and Israel’s targeted killing of three top Hamas military commanders.

By Ibrahim Barzak, The Associated Press, Toronto Star
August 22, 2014

GAZA, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES—Gaza gunmen killed 18 alleged spies for Israel on Friday, including seven who were lined up behind a mosque with bags over their heads and shot in front of hundreds of people. The killings came in response to Israel’s deadly airstrike against three top Hamas military commanders.

The killings occurred after more than six weeks of heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas. In new violence, a 4-year-old Israeli boy was killed by Palestinian rocket fire, while four Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed a tough response to the killing. In all, more than 2,000 Palestinians and 68 people on the Israeli side have died.

In Gaza, Hamas media said Friday’s shootings signalled the start of a crackdown, under the rallying cry of “choking the necks of the collaborators.” It was the largest number of suspected informers killed by Hamas in a single day since it seized Gaza by force in 2007.

The Al Majd website, which is close to the Hamas security services, said suspects would now be dealt with “in the field” rather than in the courts in order to create deterrence.

Hamas said it would not release the names of those killed because it wanted to protect the reputation of their families. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said two of those killed Friday were women. It called for an immediate halt to what it said were “extra-judicial executions.”

The killings came a day after an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Gaza killed three senior military leaders of Hamas. The three had played a key role in expanding Hamas’ military capabilities, including building a network of attack tunnels into Israel and smuggling weapons.

Earlier in the week, another strike killed the wife and two children of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of the Hamas military wing. Deif’s fate remains unclear.

Friday’s events began with the shooting of 11 alleged informants at the Gaza City police headquarters in the morning. Of the 11, two were women, the Palestinian rights centre said.

Later in the day, seven people were killed outside the city’s downtown al-Omari mosque as worshippers wrapped up noon prayers. Photos from the incident posted on several Palestinian websites showed several hundred people gathered near the scene.

The photos showed masked, black-clad gunmen leading several men with bags over their heads to a wall.
Witness Ayman Sharif, 42, said a piece of paper was affixed to the wall above the head of each of the seven, with his initials and his alleged crime.

Sharif quoted one of the gunmen as saying the seven “had sold their souls to the enemy for a cheap price” and had caused killing and destruction.

The commander of the group then gave the order to the others to open fire with their automatic rifles. He said the bodies were collected by an ambulance and the gunmen left.

Friday’s killing marked the third time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war six weeks ago that Hamas announced the killing of alleged collaborators. On Thursday, Al Majd said seven people were arrested on suspicion of working with Israel and that three of them were killed.

In pinpointing the whereabouts of the Hamas commanders, Israel likely relied to some extent on local informers. Israel has maintained a network of informers despite its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, at times using blackmail or the lure of exit permits to win co-operation.

Meanwhile, Israel-Gaza fighting continued for a third day since the collapse of Egyptian-led cease-fire talks earlier this week.

By early evening, Gaza militants had fired at least 90 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, while Israel carried out at least 30 airstrikes in Gaza, the military said.

Just before sundown, a mortar shell landed in the Israeli village of Nahal Oz near the Gaza border, killing the 4-year-old boy, rescue officials said. Police released a photo of the scene showing two charred cars destroyed in the attack.

Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister expressed his condolences and vowed that Hamas would pay a “heavy price.”

Elsewhere in Israel, one civilian was moderately wounded by a rocket in the southern city of Beersheba and another was lightly hurt by a rocket that landed in the border town of Sderot. In the city of Ashdod, a rocket hit a synagogue and three people were lightly hurt by shattered glass.

In Gaza, one of the strikes hit a livestock farm where two workers were killed and three people were wounded, said Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra. The Israeli military said its strikes targeted concealed rocket launchers and weapons sites.

Since Israel-Hamas fighting erupted on July 8, at least 2,091 Palestinians have been killed in the coastal territory, according to Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Nearly a quarter of the dead — 469 — are children, according to a UNICEF field officer in Gaza, Pernille Ironside. Of the more than 10,500 Palestinians wounded, nearly one-third are children, according to UNICEF figures, while some 100,000 Gazans have been left homeless.

On the Israeli side, the boy’s killing Friday raised the death toll to 68 people, including 64 soldiers, three civilians and a Thai worker.

The renewed fighting dashed hopes for a lasting truce. Earlier this week, Hamas rejected an Egyptian truce proposal under which Israel would gradually ease its blockade of Gaza, without giving specific commitments.

Hamas demands a lifting of the border closure imposed by Israel and Egypt after the militant group’s takeover of the coastal strip in 2007.

A quick resumption of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Cairo also seems unlikely, particularly after the killing of the three Hamas commanders. Senior Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said late Thursday that his group would not budge from its demands.

Israel says the Gaza blockade is needed to prevent Hamas and other militant groups from getting weapons. The restrictions prevent most Gazans from travelling outside the crowded coastal strip and bar most exports.

Amid the crisis, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar to push Hamas negotiators to return to cease-fire talks, and to encourage Qatar to support Egyptian cease-fire efforts, a Palestinian official said.

Abbas flew to Egypt later Friday to meet with Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss cease-fire efforts, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss issues related to the negotiations. Abbas is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi during a three-day visit to Egypt.

Estrin reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Yousur Alhlou in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


PCHR Calls for Stopping Extra-Judicial Executions in Gaza PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 22 August 2014

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) is following up with concern reports of extra-judicial executions carried out in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli offensive, which has been ongoing for 47 days.  These executions have targeted persons suspected of collaboration with Israeli occupation forces.

The latest of such executions took place at approximately 09:00 (local time) on Friday, 22 August 2014, when at least 9 persons, including 2 women, were executed by firing squad in al-Katiba yard in the west of Gaza City.  Identities of those persons are still unknown to PCHR, as the executions were carried out under strict security measures.

PCHR calls upon the Palestinian National Authority and resistance groups to intervene to stop such extra-judicial executions whatever their reasons or motives are.

This morning, Lawyer Raji Sourani, Director PCHR, has sent urgent letters to a number of Palestinian leaders demanding them to immediately and decisively intervene to stop such extra-judicial executions, considering that they cause damage to all of us.  Although we are aware of the circumstances of the ongoing offensive, and the direct impact of employing and using collaborators in carrying out extra-judicial assassinations and other crimes by Israeli forces, we need to confirm the rule of law and respect for human rights.

 

Hamas kills 21 suspected informers

Human rights bodies condemn ‘extra-judicial executions’ while death of four-year-old in Israel threatens escalation of conflict

By Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem and Hazem Balousha in Gaza, The Guardian
August 22, 2014

Hamas has turned its anger over Israel’s assassination of three military commanders against alleged collaborators in Gaza, killing 21 people in a little over 24 hours and warning that the “same punishment will be imposed soon on others”.

The suspected informers – including two women – were killed in three batches in a campaign codenamed “Strangling Necks”. Three were killed on Thursday, 11 at a disused police station early on Friday, and another seven shot dead in public outside a mosque in Gaza City shortly after noon prayers.

The conflict seemed likely to escalate further on Friday afternoon after a four-year-old Israeli child was killed when a mortar hit a car close to the Gaza border. It was the first civilian death in Israel since fighting resumed after the collapse of the latest temporary ceasefire earlier this week, and was expected to trigger a strong response from the Israeli military.

The boy is the fourth civilian and the first child to be killed in Israel since the war began. Sixty-four soldiers have also died. More than 500 children have been killed in Gaza, out of a total of more than 2,000 deaths.

The summary executions in Gaza triggered swift condemnation from Palestinian and international human rights organisations. Raji al-Surani, the director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said: “We demand the [Palestinian Authority] and the resistance [militant groups] to intervene to stop these extra-judicial executions, no matter what the reasons and the motives are.”

Pictures showed a group of men, with their heads covered and hands tied behind their backs, kneeling against a wall. Masked Hamas fighters dressed in black and armed with AK47s pushed to them to the ground before shooting them.

The mosque’s imam asked worshippers to inform Hamas security officials about anyone suspected of behaving strangely, or asking about fighters. “We have to protect our mujahideen [fighters] and back them, not let the Zionist occupation [Israel] easily target them as happened in Rafah with commanders,” he said.

A notice attached to a wall detailed the charges against one suspect. It said he or she had provided “information to the enemy on the places of mujahideen [fighters], standing positions, tunnels, the places of explosive devices, and their houses and rockets”, allowing Israel to target its air strikes. “And upon that the justice revolutionary verdict was implemented.”

The Hamas-run Al Rai website suggested a direct link between the executions and Israel’s targeting of Hamas commanders, saying “the current circumstances forced us to take such decisions”.

The suspects were believed to have been arrested before the assassination early on Thursday of three top Hamas military leaders in Rafah and the possible death of military chief Mohammed Deif in an air strike in Gaza City on Tuesday, which killed his wife and two children.

The killings were an unambiguous warning to informers. Hamas claimed that a verdict and sentence was handed down by a court, although it is unlikely that the suspects went through a fair and impartial judicial process.

A statement issued in the name of “the Palestinian resistance” said that the court’s sheikhs ordered the executions of “collaborators who betrayed their religion and sold their people and land for a cheap price, and achieved many missions for the enemy”.

It said it had not named the suspected informers “for keeping the reputation and honour of their families and children”. Anyone who “allows himself to be a tool of enemy crimes will definitely face the same destiny”, it added.

Some of those at the mosque expressed approval of the killings. “It was a late move – I wish it was from the beginning, and I hope it continues until we reach a community empty of traitors and collaborators,” said Mohammed Wasfi.

The suspected collaborators deserved to die, said Awni Switti. “Palestinians have to stop this cheap assistance to the enemy.” But he added: “I hope they have checked and investigated with them carefully before they made this decision.”

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, condemned the killings. “No justification for #Hamas summary execution of 11, informer or not. No due process. Executions always wrong,” he wrote on Twitter.

Collaboration with Israel is punishable by death under Palestinian law, though the death sentence requires presidential approval. Hamas has repeatedly carried out summary executions. In the last conflict in Gaza, in November 2012, several suspected informers were killed and the body of at least one was dragged through the streets of Gaza City by a motorcycle.

Israeli intelligence relies heavily on informers in Gaza and the West Bank. Sometimes people are coerced or blackmailed into becoming collaborators; sometimes the motive is financial. If exposed, they risk death and their families – whether they knew or not – are ostracised.

The killing of the three military commanders in Rafah was a significant blow to Hamas after weeks in which senior political and military figures had avoided being targeted by the Israel Defence Forces, largely by keeping underground in a network of bunkers and tunnels and refraining from using mobile phones.

Deif’s fate was still unclear. Israeli officials said they were confident that he had died in the blast but no conclusive evidence was produced.

Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior Hamas politician in Gaza, said in a statement that “despite the pain” of losing the military commanders, “the history of the Hamas movement has proven more than once that it is stronger after every targeted killing of one of its senior members. After a senior operative is killed, we immediately continue on our path without hesitating or stepping back.”

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict shifted from Cairo to New York, with a United Nations security council resolution drafted by Britain, France and Germany with US support. According to reports in the Israeli media, it called for an immediate cessation of fighting, the opening of crossings in and out of Gaza, international supervision to prevent weapon smuggling and the construction of tunnels, and the Palestinian Authority to be the governing authority. No date had been set for debating and voting on the proposal.

The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was in Qatar meeting Hamas’s political leader, Khaled Meshaal, to push him to return to a ceasefire, and to encourage Qatar to support Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce, a Palestinian official said.

Abbas was due to travel to Cairo later on Friday to meet Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss ceasefire efforts.


© Copyright JFJFP 2024