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Friday, August 22, 2014

Hamas executes 14 "collaborators" - will their deaths be blamed on Israel? (UPDATE: 21, real photo)

Times of Israel reports:
A Gaza security official announces Hamas has killed 11 suspected informers for Israel.

The security official says the 11 were killed early Friday at the Gaza City police headquarters. He says all the men had previously been sentenced by Gaza courts.

He speaks on condition of anonymity, because he is not authorized to discuss the incident with reporters. The killings of the 11 are also reported by al-Rai and al-Majd, two websites linked to Hamas.
These are in addition to the 3 reported executed on Thursday - which was reported separately in the same Al Majd website.

A witness said he saw their bodies lying on the ground near Al Azhar University before the bodies were transferred to the morgue at Shifa Hospital.

Hamas is calling this initiative "Operation Neck Choking."

No doubt, Israel's targeting of senior Hamas officials has gotten the remaining Hamas leaders very jumpy - and trigger-happy. They are now executing anyone who looks at them the wrong way, or using this as an excuse to kill off their political rivals, especially from Fatah.

In the al-Majd post about the story, they write, "It is prohibited to publish photographs or names of the executed in order to preserve the social fabric; and the criminal is by himself and his actions should not affect the other members of his family."

Which means that these "collaborators" will be counted as "civilians" killed by Israel. As we've seen before, the bodies of the murder victims are transported to a hospital morgue without telling anyone the circumstances of their death, so they are naturally assumed (and presumably reported by the Hamas health minister) as having been killed by Israel.

UPDATE: Reuters says, and the Al Majd site notes, seven more were executed:

Hamas militants killed seven Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel in a public execution in a central Gaza square on Friday, witnesses and a Hamas website said.

The victims, their heads covered and hands tied, were shot dead by masked gunmen dressed in black in front of a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque after prayers, witnesses and al-Majd, a pro-Hamas website, said.


Ma'an says "Seven men were shot dead in front of a mosque by men in Hamas military uniforms after Friday prayers, witnesses said."