Hamas condemns 6 ‘informants for Israel’ to death by hanging
Verdict raises number of people on death row to 10; others given jail term for alleged spying
Dov Lieber is a former Times of Israel Arab affairs correspondent.
Six Gazans were condemned to be hanged over charges they informed for Israel, two Hamas-run military courts ruled Sunday.
Three men were sentenced to hang by the permanent military court and death sentences for another three were upheld by the supreme military court, according to a statement on the Hamas-run Gaza Palestinian interior ministry website.
Sunday’s verdicts raise the number of people on death row to 10.
Seven other people were given prison sentences Sunday ranging from 12 to 17 years long for spying for Israel.
The supreme military court also granted an appeal to a 24-year-old who was sentenced to hang for spying, and instead sentenced him to an unspecified term of hard labor in prison.
Under Palestinian law, death sentences can be handed out for those collaborating with Israel, murderers and drug traffickers.
But there are stark differences between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
No execution has been carried out in the West Bank since 2002, and only two were carried out there between 1994 and 2002.
Since Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, 96 death penalties have been handed out, mostly by military courts and often for spying on behalf of Israel, said Hamdi Shaqura of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Some, but not all, the death sentences have been carried out.
At least 21 death sentences were handed out in Gaza in 2016 alone.
AP and AFP contributed to this report.
