Hamas executes 5 Palestinians, 2 for ‘collaborating’ with Israel

Two of the executed Palestinian were convicted of supplying Israel with intel that aided the IDF in striking targets in Gaza, Hamas said.

By Debbie Reiss, World Israel News

The Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group on Sunday executed five Palestinians for murder and “collaborating” with Israel.

“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.

The executions meant “to achieve public deterrence and security,” the terror group said, and added that the executed Palestinians had been given “their full rights to defend themselves.”

The two charged with collaborating with Israel had been in prison since 2009 and 2015, respectively.

One of them was convicted of providing Israel with “information on men of the resistance, their residence… and the location of rocket launchpads,” in the early 1990s, Hamas said.

Hamas has sentenced 13 people to death since the beginning of the year.

Under Palestinian law, a death sentence can only be carried out with the express permission of the President of the Palestinian Authority. However, since breaking away from the PA and annexing Gaza, Hamas has not followed this protocol.

According to The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, a total of 180 people have been handed death sentences in courts in Gaza since 2007, of which 33 have had their sentences carried out.

The last time Hamas carried out a death sentence was in 2017, when three prisoners were executed.