There are pockets of the diplomatic world where characterizing Hamas as a moderate, pragmatic organization has become something of a cottage industry. Very occasionally, the Iran-backed group has banned particularly controversial policies and, thereby, provided material for that cottage industry.
The last time Hamas executed someone for a criminal offense was July 2012. The executions of so-called collaborators – which are done in spectacular, public ways up to and including dragging bodies through the streets – went on with regularity. But for a year, punishment for criminal offenses stopped short of execution.
That policy has changed:
Gaza’s Interior Ministry released pictures of the executioners and rows of armed security men, also masked, standing on the sides. The family of the victim was informed of the impending execution late Tuesday, but only given details about the time and place shortly before it took place.
“They searched us and took our phones before escorting us to the area where the makeshift hanging stage was built,” a relative of the victim said. “They brought him in surrounded by security. He talked to the sheik before they took him for the hanging. After a few minutes, a doctor confirmed his death.”
Human rights groups have expressed particular concern over Hamas’s policies toward prisoners. The Gaza Strip’s justice system is considered corrupt and tainted, and Hamas’s security personnel have been known to avail themselves of torture.
As a purely juridical matter, additionally, the executions were illegal under Palestinian law. Palestinian Authority law requires a presidential sign-off on all executions. Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from its Fatah rivals in 2007, does not recognize the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, himself a Fatah member. The issue has geopolitical and diplomatic significance, inasmuch as the inability of the PA to exert authority over the Gaza Strip complicates pretensions toward a viable Palestinian state that would include the Gaza Strip.
[Photo: Rutu Shukla / YouTube]