Hamas said to kill over 30 suspected collaborators with Israel
Local spies have helped Israeli aircraft locate and destroy Hamas homes, Gaza security sources tell Palestinian news agency
Elhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Hamas has executed more than 30 suspected collaborators in the Gaza Strip over the past few days, a Palestinian news agency reported on Monday.
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.
Human Rights Watch and other watchdogs have condemned the summary execution of collaborators in Gaza.
Civilians in Gaza spoke to Palestinian Press of “suspicious men” attacking Hamas operatives in Shejaiya and indicating the homes of Hamas members to be struck by Israeli artillery or aircraft.
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.
Hamas’s Interior Ministry reported on July 15 that in the midst of Operation Protective Edge, the Internal Security Agency managed to thwart a number of subversive attacks aimed at “our people and our resistance.”
Ministry spokesman Iyad Al-Bozom threatened on his Facebook page that “any betrayal or cowardly act against our people” would lead to “the harshest punishment under Palestinian law.”
“The eyes of of the Internal Security Agency are dispersed throughout the Gaza Strip to maintain security and protect the home front,” Al-Bozom wrote.
Meanwhile, Fatah in the Gaza Strip condemned Hamas on Monday for placing a number of Fatah members under house arrest across the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Protective Edge.
According to the PA’s official WAFA news agency, Fatah appealed to Hamas to stop arresting its members, and was told that the detentions were carried out by individuals and were not official Hamas policy. But the house arrests continued.
Fatah called on Hamas in a communique to stop harassing its members in Gaza, saying “at the moment what we need most is national solidarity to strengthen the home front.”
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup in June 2007, killing or banishing most of Fatah’s members in the Strip.
