Gaza as seen from the air. Photo: iStock
Palestinian group Hamas announced it has executed five Palestinians, including two for “collaboration” with Israel.
In a statement, the group – which rules the Gaza Strip – said the executions were carried out on Sunday, 4 September 2022.
As per the statement, the defendants had previously been given “their full rights to defend themselves.”
“On Sunday morning, the death sentence was carried out against two condemned over collaboration with the occupation (Israel), and three others in criminal cases”.
According to AFP, Hamas’s interior ministry provided the initials and years of birth of the five executed Palestinians but did not give their full names.
The two executed for “collaboration” with Israel were two men born in 1978 and 1968.
ALSO READ: Palestinians hurry back to visit fearful of new Israeli rules
Hamas said 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 launchpads”.
The second was condemned for supplying Israel in 2001 with intelligence which “led to the targeting and martyrdom of citizens by Israeli forces”, the statement added.
The three others executed on Sunday had been convicted of murder, the statement said.
Meanwhile, an Israeli court sentenced the former Gaza representative of a major United States-based Christian aid agency to 12 years in prison on allegations of sending money to the Palestinian armed movement Hamas.
Mohammad al-Halabi, former head of operations at World Vision in Gaza, was sentenced by the Beersabe’ (Beersheba) district court last week, which ruled he would serve another six years in addition to the six he has already spent in jail.
The court convicted al-Halabi in June on charges of sending millions of dollars to Hamas, which governs the besieged Gaza Strip, an accusation he and his lawyer have consistently denied.
ALSO READ: Rare 500,000-year-old elephant tusk uncovered in Israel