Hamas has executed more than 30 suspected collaborators in the Gaza Strip over the past few days, a Palestinian news agency reported on Monday.This may be in addition to four "collaborators" executed in the early days of the war.
Unnamed Palestinian security sources in Gaza told Palestine Press News Agency that Hamas has managed to apprehend dozens of suspected spies in the northern neighborhood of Shejaiya — which saw heavy fighting with the IDF last week — and summarily executed them following a short investigation. The sources said that many of the suspects were caught with weapons, telephones, and SIM cards from the Israeli cell provider Orange.
Hamas has undertaken numerous anti-collaboration campaigns in the Gaza Strip over the past years, offering amnesty to repentant Israeli spies. In May, the Hamas government executed two condemned collaborators for divulging information which Israel used to kill two Palestinians.
In November 2012, Hamas men on motorcycles were filmed dragging bodies of accused collaborators through the streets of Gaza.
Last week, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds reported that collaborators in Gaza were using “special signals” to communicate with Israeli aircraft. They were firing tracer bullets near homes that were subsequently targeted by the Israeli Air Force.
Wattan TV last week gave details. An unnamed Qassam Brigades terrorist told Arabic media that Wartime is not a time for trials which will only end up with the suspect being executed anyway. So Hamas is executing the suspects immediately in order to be sensitive to the families' honor.
Some suspects are merely shot in the feet and placed under house arrest. Others are executed immediately.
The source said, "The death penalty is no longer done as it was in the past, Our approach has changed, for several reasons, both internal and to preserve the names of families who no doubt have the resistance fighters and activists; we will not let the weak ones distort the reputation and the reputation of their children over their lifetimes."
He continued, "The implementation team to execute the spy is then transfers him to a hospital and places him in the morgue, and so he takes his punishment alone without his family being involved, and the same time be a message to the Zionists that their eyes are gouged."
Of course, once he is in the morgue, he is counted as one of those civilians killed by Israel.
The Hamas Ministry of the Interior warned potential spies in the early days of the war about consequences for their actions.
(h/t Yoel)
UPDATE: There have also been reports in Hebrew media of Hamas killing five people protesting the situation on Sunday night. I have not been able to verify that in Arabic media reports yet.