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Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip has been enforced by multiple governments, militaries, and irregular militias throughout the area's history. A large proportion of the killings have been associated with broader violent conflicts.
![]() | You can help expand this section with text translated from the corresponding article in Arabic. (May 2024)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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The State Security Court in Gaza (Arabic : محكمة أمن الدولة في غزة), which was formed in 1995, issued several death sentences against eight people, as follows: 3 in 1995, 3 in 1997, and 2 in 1999, all of which were in murder cases. Not all sentences were carried out. [1]
From the Battle of Gaza (2007) until the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip (2023–present), The Hamas movement had control of the interior of the Gaza Strip on the ground, but did not control the airspace, maritime borders, or land borders. [2] Two parallel Palestinian judicial systems carried out executions in the Gaza Strip, civil and military. [3] The judiciary of the Hamas-led civilian government and the military courts of the Ezzedeen al Qassam Brigades. The West Bank and Gaza Strip governments collaborate closely on issues such as health, but on other issues the Gaza Strip authorities act more autonomously. Palestinian law requires approval from the Palestinian National Authority president (currently Mahmoud Abbas) for the death penalty, but authorities in the Gaza Strip have disregarded this rule on multiple occasions. [4]
During the Israel–Hamas war, a video described as “Hamas executes people by throwing them off a roof of a building!” circulated on social media, but the video was from 2015 and not from Palestine. [5] A July 2015 report from Al Arabiya, included identical images and states that they were originally shared by the so-called Islamic State, and showed the execution of four gay men in Fallujah, Iraq. [5]
During the 2014 Gaza War, [6] [7] Hamas executed 23 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. [8] According to an Amnesty International report, 23 Palestinians were executed by Al-Qassam in the course of the 2014 conflict, and 16 of them imprisoned from before the war began. [9] [10] Some were on trial for espionage, but those trials were suddenly city short. From among the executed, 6 were killed by a firing squad outside a mosque in front of hundreds of spectators including children. Amnesty claimed that Hamas used the cover of the war, which had a very heavily death toll, [6] to carry out summary executions, to settle scores against opponents under the pretext they were collaborators with Israel. [11] [8] They were also accused of torture. [7]
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported in December 2015 that Hamas issued nine death sentences in 2015. Hamas had sentenced four Gazans to death during the first weeks of 2016, all on suspicion of spying. [12]
In February 2016, Al Qassam claimed they had executed of Mahmoud Eshtewi (Arabic : محمود رشدي اشتيوي, romanized: Maħmoud Rushdi Eshtewi, [13] [14] sometimes spelled "Mahmoud Ishtiwi"). [15] one of the group’s leading commanders, for very ambiguous reasons. Most reliable sources described the charges as unnamed or undefined. [16] [17] [13] [18] The stated reason was “for behavioral and moral violations to which he confessed” (Arabic : تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها) [13] [14] [18] Whatever it may refer to, the confession was probably obtained by torture. [18] [17] Before his death, his family had been told that the death penalty charge - treason (giving information to Israel that causes the deaths of Palestinians) - had been dropped. [18] There is some suspicion that Eshtewi died in custody and was shot after death, from reports of people who saw his body before burial and thought the bullet wounds looked suspicious. [13] [18] The New York Times and other media from the USA interpreted the vague charges as a reference to a "homosexual relationship". [19] [12] Eshtewi was survived by his two widows and his three children. [19]
In May 2016, Hamas reportedly executed three men by firing squad and hanging. [20] The execution was performed in the al-Katiba prison. The executed men were convicted for murder. Reportedly, the execution defied protests from the United Nations and "will likely" deepen tensions with the Palestinian government in the West Bank. [20] Hamas defied an agreement with Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank, by carrying out the executions without the approval of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas later announced that 13 additional prisoners are to be executed. [21]
In April 2017, it was reported that three Palestinians were executed by Hamas in Gaza Strip over alleged collaboration with Israel. [22] Reportedly, the men were hanged at a Hamas police compound, as dozens of Hamas leaders and officials watched the killing. [23] [24]
According to B'Tselem, Hamas courts handed down 13 death sentences in January-August 2022, but had not carried out any since 2017. [4]
On 4 September 2022, Hamas announced they had executed five men, including two men condemned over collaboration with the occupation (Israel), and three others in criminal cases. [25] A resident of Khan Younis born 1968 was convicted of supplying Israel in 1991 with “information on men of the resistance, their residence… and the location of rocket launchpads”; a second man, born 1978, was for supplying Israel in 2001 with intelligence “that led to the targeting and martyrdom of citizens” by Israeli forces, according to Hamas. [4] The other three men had been convicted for murder.
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Name(s) | Charge | Date | Location | Method |
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Ayman Taha [ citation needed ] | Treason | 4 August 2014 | Unknown | Shot |
Atta Najjar [26] | Treason | 22 August 2014 | Katiba prison | Unknown |
Mahmoud Eshtewi (also spelled "Ishtiwi") Arabic : محمود اشتيوي | Undefined | February 2016 | Gaza Strip | Firing squad (alleged by Al Qassam) [27] [18] Prior death in custody (alleged by others) [17] [18] |
3 unnamed people | Murder (3) | September 2022 | Gaza Strip | Hanging [ citation needed ] |
Khan Younis resident | Treason [upper-alpha 1] | |||
Unnamed 44 year old male [upper-alpha 2] | Treason [upper-alpha 3] | |||
The Qassam rocket is a simple, steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. These rockets cannot be fired to target specific military objectives in or near civilian areas, and are "indiscriminate when used against targets in population centers".
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, is the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas. Currently led by Mohammed Deif, IQB is the largest and best-equipped militant group operating within Gaza today.
The state of human rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is determined by Palestinian as well as Israeli policies, which affect Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories both directly and indirectly, through their influence over the Palestinian Authority (PA). Based on The Economist Democracy Index this state is classified as an authoritarian regime.
The 2006 shelling of Beit Hanoun by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) happened on 8 November, when shells hit a row of houses in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing at least 19 Palestinians and wounding more than 40. The shelling followed the IDF's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in completion of a week-long operation codenamed Operation "Autumn Clouds", which the Israeli government stated had been intended to stop the Qassam rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian militants. The Israeli government apologized and attributed the incident to a technical malfunction.
The 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict, known in Israel as Operation Summer Rains, was a series of battles between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during summer 2006, prompted by the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006. Large-scale conventional warfare occurred in the Gaza Strip, starting on 28 June 2006, which was the first major ground operation in the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement plan was implemented between August and September 2005.
The History of Hamas is an account of the Palestinian Islamist fundamentalist socio-political organization with an associated paramilitary force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Hamas (حماس) Ḥamās is an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement".
An extrajudicial killing is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether lawfully or unlawfully, targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures. The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legal police actions or legal warfighting on a battlefield are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate. The label "extrajudicial killing" has also been applied to organized, lethal enforcement of extralegal social norms by non-government actors, including lynchings and honor killings.
The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict beginning in 1948, when 200,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes, settling in the Gaza Strip as refugees. Since then, Israel has fought 15 wars against the Gaza Strip. The number of Gazans reportedly killed in the most recent 2023 war — 34,000 — is higher than the death toll of all other wars of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The 2009 Hamas political violence took place in the Gaza Strip during and after the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. A series of violent acts, ranging from physical assaults, torture, and executions of Palestinians suspected of collaboration with the Israel Defense Forces, as well as members of the Fatah political party, occurred. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 32 people were killed by these attacks: 18 during the conflict and 14 afterward, and several dozen more were maimed, many by shots to the legs.
Palestinian land laws dictate how Palestinians are to handle their ownership of land under the Palestinian National Authority—currently only in the West Bank. Most notably, these laws prohibit Palestinians from selling any Palestinian-owned lands to "any man or judicial body corporation of Israeli citizenship, living in Israel or acting on its behalf". These land laws were originally enacted during the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank, which began after Jordan's partial victory during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and ended after the sweeping defeat of the Arab coalition to the Israeli military during the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, following which the territory was occupied by Israel. Land sales by Palestinians to Israelis are considered treasonous by the former to the Palestinian national cause because they threaten the aspiration for an independent Palestinian state. The prohibition on land-selling to Israelis in these laws is also stated as enforced in order to "halt the spread of moral, political and security corruption". Consequently, Palestinians who sell land to Israelis can be sentenced to death under Palestinian governance, although death penalties are seldom carried out; capital punishment has to be approved by the President of the Palestinian National Authority.
Emad Akel also spelled Imad Akel was a commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He was killed by the Israel Defense Forces.
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge, and Battle of the Withered Grain, was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that has been governed by Hamas since 2007. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated Operation Brother's Keeper, in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in over two thousand deaths, the vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians. This includes a total of six Israeli civilians who were killed as a result of the conflict.
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It is a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Torture in the State of Palestine refers to the use of torture and systematic degrading practices on civilians detained by Palestinian forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. As of 2018, Amnesty reported that LGBT people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment.
Mazen Muhammad Suleiman Faqha Arabic: مازن فقها was a senior commander in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. He was sentenced by Israel to 9 life terms in 2003 for his involvement in the planning and execution of multiple terrorist acts beginning in 2001. He was released as part of the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange and deported to Gaza. After his release, he was one of the founders and leaders of Hamas' section in the West Bank.
Hamas war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, which the Islamist Nationalist organization Hamas and its paramilitary wing, the al-Qassam Brigades have been accused of committing. These have included murder, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, rape, torture and pillage.
Hamas announced that the man in charge of a number of the group's tunnels used for smuggling and surprise attacks had been executed for moral turpitude, a Hamas term for homosexuality[ better source needed ] … a Hamas[ who? ] investigation alleged that Ishtiwi had hidden money designated for his unit's weapons, before an unnamed man claimed to have had sex with him, providing details about their meetings. The investigation concluded that the money Ishtiwi had stolen had been used to pay the man for sexual relations or to bribe him to keep Ishtiwi's secret.Note: The phrase translated by this source as "moral turpitude" is translated in other sources as "moral transgressions", and there is no evidence of it being used in any other context to specifically refer to Men who have Sex with Men (MSM).
لتجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها - For his behavioral and moral transgressions that he acknowledged.
His family said they discovered that Qassam operatives held him in secret locations until February 7, when the group's Military Information Department issued a statement saying it had executed Eshtewi after sentencing him to death "for behavioral and moral violations to which he confessed".
Adding a layer of scandal to the story, he was accused of moral turpitude, by which Hamas meant homosexuality." … "Mr. Ishtiwi, who is survived by two wives and three children…
لتجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها - For his behavioral and moral transgressions that he acknowledged.