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Hamas sentences 3 Gazans to death for spying for Israel
3 others also accused of giving information to Jewish state are sent to prison, Palestinian media reports
Dov Lieber is The Times of Israel's Arab affairs correspondent.
A Hamas-run military court on Tuesday sentenced three Gazans to death and three to prison, charging them with being informants for Israel.
A 57-year-old man from Gaza City was convicted of passing intelligence to Israel for over 20 years, including the location of Hamas’s tunnels, hideouts, rocket caches, as well as the houses and cars of the terror group’s fighters, a source in the Gaza military court told the Palestinian news site Safa.
A man in his 50s from Khan Younis as well as a 35-year-old from Rafah were also sentenced to death for passing information to Israelis, the report said.
Additionally, the military court source said a Gazan man who worked with Israel from 2006 to 2010 had his sentence lightened from life in prison to 15 years following an appeal.
The report did not give any information about the prison sentences of the other two men charged with being informants.
Hamas, a terror group which has been the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip since 2006, has held public executions in the past of those it accuses of collaborating with Israel, including dragging bodies behind motorcycles.
On May 25, the terror group announced it would publicly execute 13 men convicted of murder connected to robberies in order to “bring back law and order” to the enclave. The UN, international human rights groups as well as the Palestinian Authority urged Hamas not to carry out the executions, saying the Islamist group did not have enough legal authority to do so.
On May 29, Hamas carried out the death sentences of three men.
Nine death sentences were handed down in the Gaza Strip in 2015 and two in the West Bank, run by the Palestinian Authority, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Around 13 more have been handed down in Gaza so far this year.
Agencies contributed to this report.
