Human Rights Voices

While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.

Palestinian Authority/Gaza, October 18, 2021

Hamas sentences two to death, two to hard labor for collaborating with Israel

Original source

The Times of Israel

Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip sentenced two men to death on allegations that they had collaborated with Israel, according to Sunday reports.

A Hamas court ordered that the two men, from Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, be hanged.

Reports did not say when the sentence will be carried out.

Two other men were sentenced to hard labor, also for collaborating with Israel.

The sentences came as a Palestinian Authority court in the West Bank city of Bethlehem sentenced a man to 15 years in prison for attempting to sell land to Jewish Israelis.

Under Palestinian Authority law, selling land to Jews can be a capital offense.

Hamas authorities have held public executions in the past of those it accuses of collaborating with Israel.

The terror group, which says it seeks to destroy Israel, has controlled Gaza since 2007, when it ousted the Fatah-dominated PA from the territory.

The PA, based in the West Bank, has long criticized rivals Hamas for carrying out executions without the approval of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to Palestinian law, the PA president must approve the enforcement of any death sentence. Since 2006, Abbas has not given his official blessing for the implementation of a single execution.

According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, Hamas has sentenced 130 people to death since 2007 and has executed 25 people.

With the two fresh sentences, Hamas has sentenced seven people to death this year, figures show.

The PA has not executed anyone since 2005, when five people were put to death.

Executions by Palestinians, whether by the PA or Hamas, have in the past met with international condemnation.