Hamas members executed seven men leaving a mosque in Gaza today, according to reports.
Masked Hamas gunmen on Friday afternoon killed seven suspected informants for Israel near a Gaza City mosque as worshipers were ending midday prayers, bringing the total number of alleged collaborators killed in the coastal strip during the day to 18, according to witnessed and to Hamas media.
The witness said masked gunmen lined up the seven men in a side street and opened fire on them. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his own safety.
Eleven more purported informants were killed earlier at a Gaza police station.
Reuters provides additional details.
In the public execution, militants wearing masks and dressed in black gunned down the suspects, whose faces were covered and hands bound, as worshippers emerged from the Omari mosque on Palestine Square, one of Gaza’s busiest districts.
“The resistance has begun an operation called ‘strangling the necks’, targeting collaborators who aid the (Israeli) occupation, kill our people and destroy houses,” a pro-Hamas website said.
A note posted nearby stated that the men killed had been subject to a “ruling of revolutionary justice.”
The killings follow Israel’s successful strike against three top Hamas commanders yesterday.
An analysis published in The Times of Israel yesterday stated that Israel likely received intelligence information from Gazans to aid the IDF’s air strikes, and that such “a grave betrayal … has left Hamas … deeply unsettled.” It is unclear what level of proof established the guilt of the men who were killed.
Although the men who were killed today on suspicion of helping Israel were shot, in the past Hamas has killed suspects by strangling them.
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