# Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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. Many of the executions have be described as extrajudicial killings due to an incomplete or unaccountable court procedures.
According to Palestinian law, there are 77 crimes that are punishable by the death penalty. From 1994 to 2022, approximately 260 death sentences have been issued: around 230 in Gaza and 30 in the West Bank. In total, during this period, 41 executions were carried out, with the vast majority occurring in Gaza.

## History
### The Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip

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.

## Courts in the Gaza Strip after 2007

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. Two parallel Palestinian judicial systems carried out executions in the Gaza Strip, civil and military. 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.

## Executions by Gaza's government and military (2007-2024)
### Executions during the 2014 Gaza war

During the 2014 Gaza War, Hamas executed more than 20 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
According to an Amnesty International report, 23 Palestinians were executed by Al-Qassam in the course of the 2014 conflict, and 16 of those people had been in prison since before the war began. Some were on trial for espionage, but those trials were suddenly cut 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, to carry out summary executions, to settle scores against opponents under the pretext they were collaborators with Israel. They were also accused of torture.
Most of these executions of alleged collaborators occurred in response to the IDF assassinating Muhammad Abu Shamala [ar] and Raed Attar, and the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Mohammed Deif, which instead killed his 27-year-old wife, Widad, and his 7-month-old son Ali Deif. The following day, 18 of the suspected collaborators were executed by firing squad. The day after that, the body of Deif's 3-year-old daughter, Sarah, was recovered from the rubble of the same home.

### 9 sentenced to death in 2015 and 4 in January 2016

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.

### Mahmoud Eshtewi - February 2016

In February 2016, Al Qassam claimed they had executed of Mahmoud Rushdi Eshtewi [ar] (Arabic: محمود رشدي اشتيوي), one of the group's leading commanders, for very ambiguous reasons. Eshtewi was survived by his two widows and his three children. Most reliable sources at the time described the charges as unnamed or undefined. The stated reason was "for behavioral and moral violations to which he confessed" (Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها). Whatever it may refer to, the confession was probably obtained by torture. 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. 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. The New York Times and other media from the USA interpreted the vague charges as a reference to a "homosexual relationship".

### 3 convicts executed in May 2016

In May 2016, Hamas reportedly executed three men by firing squad and hanging. 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. 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.

### 3 alleged collaborators executed in April 2017

In April 2017, it was reported that three Palestinians were executed by Hamas in Gaza Strip over alleged collaboration with Israel. Reportedly, the men were hanged at a Hamas police compound, as dozens of Hamas leaders and officials watched the killing.

### 13 sentenced between January and August 2022

According to B'Tselem, Hamas courts handed down 13 death sentences in January-August 2022, but had not carried out any since 2017.

### 5 executed in September 2022

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. 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. The other three men had been convicted for murder.

## Death sentences and executions in the Gaza Strip

| Executed during | Person(s) | Person(s) | Detained | Death sentence | Death sentence | Execution | Execution | Sources |
| Executed during | Name or number | Age | Detained | Date | Charge(s) | Date | Method | Sources |
| Operation Protective Edge | Ayman Taha | | | | Treason | 2014-08-04 $^{[disputed]}$ | Firing squad $^{[disputed]}$ | |
| Operation Protective Edge | 25 or more people | | | summary executions | Treason | 2014-08-21 to 24 August | Various | |
| Operation Protective Edge | Atta Najjar | | | | Treason | 2014-08-22 | Unknown | |
| | Mahmoud Eshtewi [ar] (also spelled "Ishtiwi") | 34 | January 2015 | Undisclosed | Undefined (see above) | 2016-02-07 | Firing squad $^{[disputed]}$ | |
| | 3 people | | | | Murder (3) | September 2022 | September 2022 | |
| | 1 person | | 1991 | | Treason | September 2022 | September 2022 | |
| | 1 person | 44 | 2001 or after | | Treason | September 2022 | September 2022 | |
| | 5 people | | | 2023-08-06 | Treason | Sentenced to hanging. | Sentenced to hanging. | |
* ↑ Spying for Egypt.
* 1 2 Israel sat he was executed by Gaza, but Gaza say he died in an Israeli airstrike months later that killed his entire family.
* ↑ Collaborating with Israel.
* ↑ Including some public executions.
* ↑ The stated reason was “for behavioral and moral violations to which he confessed” (Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها)
* ↑ Firing squad alleged by Al-Qassam, or prior death in custody alleged by others.
* ↑ Described only as a Khan Younis resident.
* ↑ convicted of supplying Israel in 1991 with “information on men of the resistance, their residence… and the location of rocket launchpads”.
* ↑ born 1978
* 1 2 supplying Israel in 2001 with intelligence “that led to the targeting and martyrdom of citizens” by Israeli forces, according to Hamas.
* ↑ Officially "collaboration with hostile entities" as defined by Article 131 of the 1979 Palestinian Revolutionary Penal Code.
* ↑ No reports of the sentence being implemented.

## Misinformation about executions in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip

Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades militant wing have been credibly accused of numerous war crimes including various extrajudicial killings, but commonly told stories about executions in the Gaza Strip have been over simplified, exaggerated, distorted, or completely fabricated. For example, 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 the State of Palestine. 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.

### Allegations of capital punishment for homosexuality

Same sex sexual behaviour is not officially or typically a capital crime in the Gaza Strip. The only crimes that routinely attract the death penalty are treason and murder. No laws currently in peace in the Occupied Palestinian territory directly prohibit sex between consenting adult women. But there are differencees between the Gaza Strip and West Bank governments regarding the legal status of sex between consenting adult men. The laws against homosexual behavior between men in Palestine that are currently in place in the Gaza Strip are a relic of British colonial rule in Mandatory Palestine. There is some ambiguity and debate about whether homosexuality was decriminalised in 1858 during the period Ottoman role that preceded Mandatory Palestine. The British colonial laws that are currently on place in the Gaza Strip specify a sentences of a maximum of 10 or 14 years years in prison. There is very little evidence that these laws are actually enforced in Gaza. Some interpretations of the laws say that it does not outlaw consensual gay sex between adults at all. In 2018, Anis. F. Kassim (editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Yearbook of International Law) said that Palestinian law (even in Gaza) could be interpreted as allowing non-commercial sex between consenting adult men.