TEL AVIV – The Amnesty International human rights organization has accused Hamas of using the cover of last summer’s war with Israel to execute at least 23 Palestinians who were rivals of the Islamic terrorist organization.
During the war, WND broke the story that Hamas utilized a two-hour humanitarian cease-fire facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross to summarily execute at least 25 Palestinian civilians it suspected of collaborating with Israel.
At the time, WND’s story was picked up and cited by the Israeli and international news media.
Now, the London-based Amnesty International has detailed Hamas’s alleged extrajudicial killings in a report titled “Strangling Necks’: Abduction, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict.”
The report alleged a “brutal campaign of abductions, torture and unlawful killings against Palestinians accused of ‘collaborating’ with Israel” by Hamas during the war.
The dossier details the “extrajudicial execution of at least 23 Palestinians and the arrest and torture of dozens of others.”
According to Amnesty’s findings, some 16 Palestinians killed were either in prison or in the middle of ongoing legal cases that were not yet ruled upon.
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, slammed Israel, claiming the Jewish state inflicted “massive death and destruction upon the people in Gaza.”
In the same statement, he called Hamas’s executions “absolutely appalling.”
He said that under the fog of war, Hamas forces “took the opportunity to ruthlessly settle scores, carrying out a series of unlawful killings and other grave abuses.”
“In the chaos of the conflict, the de facto Hamas administration granted its security forces free rein to carry out horrific abuses, including against people in its custody. These spine-chilling actions, some of which amount to war crimes, were designed to exact revenge and spread fear across the Gaza Strip.”
Salah Al-Bardaweel, a Hamas parliament member and the group’s spokesman, called Amnesty’s report “unjust and unfair,” adding that “its release in this way reveals the truth about the work of this organization, which includes in its administration Israeli employees.”
During the war, on July 24, 2014, WND quoted sources close to Gazan jihadist organizations who said Hamas used a truce four days earlier to killed at least 25 Palestinian civilians it suspected of collaborating with Israel.
The so-called collaborators were accused of leading Israeli troops to smuggling tunnels and providing intelligence on Hamas’ infrastructure inside Gazan cities.
The sources said Hamas publicly blamed the killings of the Palestinian suspects on Israel, claiming the civilians were murdered during an Israel Defense Forces “massacre” in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood of the Gaza Strip on July 20.
The sources further said the civilian suspects murdered by Hamas were publicly celebrated by Hamas as martyrs killed by the Jewish state.
After the July 20 operation in Shujaiyeh, in which the IDF says it targeted Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, Israel agreed to a two-hour humanitarian cease-fire facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The stated purposed of the lull in fighting was to evacuate Palestinian casualties.
During the cease-fire, the IDF said Hamas violated the agreement by shooting at IDF soldiers. Nonetheless, Israel extended the cease-fire another hour.
Israel lost 13 soldiers during the Shujaiyeh operation. Hamas claimed Israel killed at least 66 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in that operation.
Israel says most Palestinian casualties were gunmen.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/amnesty-international-accuses-hamas-of-executions/
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