Hamas executes 3 for `collaboration` with Israel

Gaza City: The armed wing of Hamas has executed three Palestinians and arrested seven others for allegedly collaborating with Israel during the Gaza war, a website close to the movement reported Thursday. The Majd website quoted a senior security official in the enclave as saying seven people had been arrested on suspicion of scoping out targets for Israel and that three others had been shot dead. No date was given for the executions or the arrests. The same website reported on August 6 that "a number" of Palestinian collaborators had been killed, again without giving a date. On July 13, witnesses in the southern city of Rafah reported seeing gunmen kill a man in the middle of the street in another incident which appeared to be the execution of a suspected collaborator.  Israel and Hamas have been at war since July 8 in a conflict that has killed 2,075 Palestinians and 67 on the Israeli side. Under Palestinian law, collaborating with Israel, murder and drug trafficking are punishable by death. In May, Hamas announced the execution of two men accused of being collaborators, saying they had been executed in accordance with the law. In principle, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who heads the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, is supposed to approve all executions. 

Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since winning elections in the enclave in 2007. Although it handed the reins of power to a Ramallah-based administration in early June, it remains the de facto power in Gaza. Abbas is based in Ramallah in the West Bank.