Hamas to execute 3 Thursday over death of terror leader
Two men to be hanged, one shot, after convicted of taking part in killing of Mazen Faqha; Amnesty urges stay of executions and retrial
Hamas announced Wednesday it will execute three men on Thursday who were found guilty this week of assassinating a senior member of the terror group in March.
Mazen Faqha, a Hamas terror chief, was shot on March 24 outside his Gaza home. Hamas accuses the three suspects of collaborating with Israel and sentenced them to execution on Sunday.
Israel has not confirmed or denied the accusations.
Amnesty International urged the terror group to stay the executions. The human rights group said the men were found guilty “in a court that utterly disregarded international fair trial standards.”
“We are urging the Hamas authorities to immediately halt these executions and ensure that the men are given a fair retrial,” Amnesty said Wednesday.
In Sunday’s court ruling, the chief suspect, Ashraf Abu Leila, 38, was sentenced to hang after being convicted of murder.
The others were identified only as Hisham al-Aloul, 44, who was also sentenced to hang, and Abdallah al-Nashar, who was to face the firing squad. They were convicted of collaborating with Israel.
Faqha had been in charge of forming cells for Hamas’s military wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank — overseeing, from Gaza, efforts to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets from the West Bank.
He had spent years in an Israeli jail for terrorist activities including orchestrating a 2002 suicide bombing in which 9 Israelis were killed, before being released to Gaza as part of the 2011 Shalit prisoner exchange deal.
Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after ousting forces from the rival Fatah party.
