3 Palestinians executed by Hamas over ties with Israel

Three Palestinians were hanged in the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning by the Islamic Hamas movement, after being convicted of collaborating with Israel, Hamas-run interior ministry officials said.

The three, all residents of Gaza, aged 32, 42 and 55, were sentenced to death by a Hamas court a few months ago, the officials added.

According to a statement, they were hanged before representatives of the Gaza community and “in accordance with the law”.

NAN reports that the suspects had admitted to passing sensitive data to Israel, leading to the destructions of mosques and homes.

The hangings were not related to the ongoing investigation into the assassination of Mazen Fuqaha’a, a senior Hamas official.

However, dozens of people have been arrested for questioning in that case, the interior ministry said, though it declined to name an exact figure.

Since March, Hamas has clamped down on a key border crossing with Israel, the longest since it took over the coastal enclave a decade ago, while it looks into Fuqaha’a’s death, which the movement blames on Israel.

In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative council elections. It took control of Gaza the following year after a violent rift with the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian authority,  president Mahmoud Abbas.

Since then, the Hamas-run authorities have carried out 22 executions, most recently in May 2016, and courts in Gaza have sentenced 106 people to death since then, according to the Palestinian centre for human rights.

Hamas also killed 23 people without trials during its 2014 war with Israel.