Unlawful Violence against Political Rivals in Gaza

During Israel’s major military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,350 Palestinian civilians and combatants and wounded about 5,000[3], Hamas authorities there took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish, and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaboration with Israel.  These attacks by Hamas-controlled security forces and the group’s armed wing against other Palestinians during and since the recent fighting marked the worst outbreak of internal violence since Hamas took control inside Gaza in June 2007.[4]

The Hamas internal security forces have two main pillars: the police and the Internal Security Force (al-Amn al-Dakhili), which deals with matters of territorial security and political crimes, similar to the Fatah-run Preventive Security Service in the West Bank. Hamas’s armed wing, the 'Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, deals primarily with external security, and in particular the hostilities with Israel. In Gaza, Hamas also controls the National Security Force, a PA-wide force with responsibility for border security.

Both the police and Internal Security Force sustained extensive damage during the Israeli offensive.  Israeli air strikes on December 27 killed scores of policemen, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber, and subsequently destroyed dozens of police stations and facilities across Gaza.  On January 15, an Israeli air attack killed Interior Minister Said Siyam together with nine others.  Nonetheless, Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza after major hostilities had stopped observed that the Hamas government and security forces apparently still had the capacity to maintain internal order.  Hamas security forces appeared organized, with visible patrols and police functioning out of makeshift offices. In light of that degree of control, it seems unlikely that other armed groups were able to move freely and carry out many of the beatings, shootings and killings documented in this report.

The unlawful violence by Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip since late December 2008 falls into several categories: killings and maimings by masked gunmen known or suspected to be affiliated with Hamas; executions of suspected collaborators; extra-judicial killings, torture, and other mistreatment; and arbitrary detention.

Killings and Maimings by Masked Gunmen

Local human rights organizations have documented a total of 30 cases of killings and scores of shootings by masked gunmen. According to the ICHR, the human rights ombudsman organization of the Palestinian Authority (PA), masked gunmen killed 28 Palestinians from December 27, 2008 to February 27, 2009.[5] In addition to the 28 deaths that witnesses attributed to masked gunmen, the ICHR reported the death of Hasan Mohamed Hasan Hirz, 39, whose body, showing bruises and signs of torture, was found in Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital on February 28, a day after he was last seen leaving his home.  According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), an independent human rights group based in Gaza, Hamas security forces or unidentified gunmen killed at least 29 Gaza residents between the start of Israel’s military operation and February 27; 26 of these cases were also recorded by ICHR.[6]

 

Human Rights Watch documented one incident in which masked gunmen killed a Gaza resident and three incidents in which they shot and maimed Gazans.

In the case resulting in death, at around 6 p.m. on January 4, 2009, members of the al-Najjar family were sitting outside their home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City when four men wearing masks and carrying AK-47 assault rifles approached the house.  Two family members who were present told Human Rights Watch that the gunmen wore unmarked black uniforms and ammunition vests, but the family did not identify them as Hamas. When the gunmen ordered everyone to stand up and raise their hands, the head of the household, Hisham al-Najjar, age 55, protested, the two witnesses said. An argument ensued and one of the gunmen fired a shot, hitting no one. At least five women inside the house came rushing out, and in the chaos the gunmen opened fire, killing Hisham al-Najjar and wounding ten members of the family and a family friend. The victims ranged in age from a 12-year old girl, Ahlam Hisham al-Najjar, who was shot in the leg, to Zakkia al-Najjar, 70, Ahlam’s grandmother, who was shot in both legs.[7]  Human Rights Watch observed the bandages on both her legs.

 

On January 4, 2009, masked gunmen in Gaza City shot and killed Hisham al-Najjar and wounded ten members of the family, plus a family friend.  Hisham’s mother, Zakkia al-Najjar, 70, was wounded in both legs.

© 2009 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

“After the gunmen left, I saw a sea of blood,” said Amar Hisham al-Najjar, 25. He told Human Rights Watch that the gunmen shot his father Hisham in the chest, the abdomen, and the legs.[8] “There was no electricity and no ambulances because of the war, so we tried to stop the bleeding and got our friends to drive the wounded to al-Shifa hospital, where my father died,” he said.  “The Hamas police at the hospital questioned me about what happened, and they said they’d get back to me, but there’s been nothing.  I’m not accusing anyone, but we demand a real investigation.”

Amar’s cousin, Saleh Sofian al-Najjar, 21, a tailor who was shot in the leg during the attack, confirmed this version of events.[9]  Human Rights Watch saw Saleh’s and Amar’s bandaged legs but did not inspect the wounds.  Saleh and Amar al-Najjar showed Human Rights Watch seven spent bullets that they said they had collected at the scene. Human Rights Watch identified the cartridges as 5.62 mm rounds for the AK-47 rifle.

Apart from Amar al-Najjar, a former member of the PA Presidential Guard, two others of those shot had worked in the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security and National Security forces prior to the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007. 

In a second case, at around 7 p.m. on January 26, four masked men wearing dark brown military jackets and carrying automatic weapons grabbed a 38-year-old former member of Fatah’s Preventive Security as he walked near his home in Gaza City.  According to the victim, who asked to remain anonymous, the men threw him into the covered back of an Isuzu pickup truck, covered his face with his kaffiyeh (scarf), and drove him to a location he later identified as a Hamas training base around 500 meters from his home.  “They took me out of the truck and said, ‘What do you want to do before you die?’” he said.[10] 

The men uncovered his face and allowed him to recite the evening prayer, he said, and then covered his face again and drove him to another location where they forced him to sit on the ground with his legs extended.  “As soon as I did that, two of them shot me in the left leg,” he said. Human Rights Watch observed his bandaged left leg.

On January 26, 2009, four masked gunmen took this former member of the Fatah-run Preventive Security from his home in Gaza City and shot him twice in the leg.  © 2009 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

In a third case, a man in his 20s who asked not to be identified told Human Rights Watch that he had “made a mistake” in mid-January when he criticized a Hamas leader in a conversation on the street with friends.[11] He believes his remark was overheard by someone in the area. Later that evening, more than a dozen armed men with black masks and red kaffiyeh took him from his home, he said, and brought him to a solitary area where they shot him three times in the lower legs and ankles. 

He told Human Rights Watch: “About fourteen of them came for me.  They forced me to go from my home to a dark place near a mosque and four of them shot me in the legs, one shot each, but one missed.  Hamas pays people to listen for them – we call them ‘drones’[12] – and the drones overheard me.  The man added that he was not politically active and was not a member of Fatah.  Human Rights Watch observed the man’s heavily bandaged legs.

This man said he “made a mistake” when he criticized Hamas on a Gaza City street in mid-January 2009.  Later that day masked gunmen took him from his home and shot him twice in the right leg and once in the left.

© 2009 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

In other cases, Hamas security forces reportedly shot individuals opposed to Hamas rule in Gaza who had openly supported Israel’s attack. Human Rights Watch interviewed one such person, who was recovering in Egypt from multiple gunshot wounds to the left leg. “I was so happy they bombed that I was giving out sweets,” the man said, his injured leg still requiring him to use a wheelchair.[13]  According to the man, he was walking home from visiting a friend in Gaza City on January 1 when he saw two young men whom he did not know carrying AK-47 assault rifles.  They pointed their weapons at his legs and one of them opened fire, he said.  An ambulance took him to al-Shifa Hospital, where he said he shared a room with two other men, whose names he did not know, who said Hamas forces had also shot them in the legs.

Alleged Hamas gunmen shot this man in the left leg on January 1, 2009, after he had welcomed the Israeli offensive by giving out candy in Gaza City.  © 2009 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

Executions of Suspected Collaborators

Approximately 800 convicted prisoners and persons were being held in pre-trial detention in the central prison in Gaza City when Israeli air strikes began on December 27, 2008, according to the ICHR, which had visited the facility earlier that month.  Hamas authorities released about 580 of the prisoners after the bombings started, but kept in custody roughly 115 alleged collaborators with Israel, about 70 Fatah supporters held on various charges, and some persons convicted of criminal offenses who had been sentenced to death.[14] Some of the remaining detainees escaped the following day when Israel bombed the prison, but were subsequently tracked down and killed by masked gunmen.  The ICHR documented 20 cases of escaped prisoners being shot and killed by masked gunmen from December 28 to January 31; at least 12 of the victims had been detained in the prison for allegedly “collaborating with the enemy.”[15] Seventeen of the 29 people killed by gunmen that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported from December 28 to February 27 were prisoners and detainees who had fled the prison compound after Israel’s attack, including 13 men sentenced to death for collaboration with Israel, three convicted of common crimes, and one man awaiting trial.[16]

An inmate in Gaza central prison, October 2007.  Israel bombed parts of the facility on December 28, 2008.

© 2007 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch interviewed a Fatah member who was still detained at the central prison when Israel bombed the facility on December 28.  The prisoners had attempted to escape at around 6 p.m. on December 27, he said, after prison guards left the facility, but detainees who reached the prison yard came under gunfire from buildings surrounding the prison compound. “Two people were shot immediately, one in his head and the second in the chest,” the witness said.  “The shooting was coming from everywhere.”[17] An hour and a half later, he said, 30 armed men in police uniforms and civilian clothes entered the compound, firing pistols at inmates’ legs and beating them to force them back to their cells.  The witness recognized one of the men as a Hamas Internal Security Force officer.[18] The security forces quickly took control, and punished some prisoners by hitting them on the hands with a thin wooden stick.  The security forces then released most of the detainees, including persons detained for drugs offenses, fraud, violating court rulings, and some alleged collaborators. Detainees who were sentenced to death, Fatah members, and most of the alleged collaborators were not released.

Israel bombed the facility at around 10:30 a.m. the following day, December 28, the witness said. “I was coming out of the bathroom and suddenly I saw the wall of a room on the first floor flying away. Two or three bombs hit that place at nearly the same time. The energy of the blast threw us toward the main gate.  There was white smoke. I regained consciousness and saw many prisoners wounded due to the shelling and the collapse of the walls.” When he attempted to escape, he came under fire from security forces outside the prison. He said:

I ran to the street, along with tens of prisoners, but we came under fire from the security forces [who had entered the prison the previous night]. I saw three of them chasing down a fleeing prisoner, shooting him in the leg and taking him away in a car.  They grabbed anyone they could catch and put him in a car. A friend of mine who is a policeman helped get me out of the area.

A reporter for the New York Times witnessed the killing of one alleged collaborator (whose death was also documented by the PCHR). On December 29, the journalist watched as a group of men pretended to transfer Saleh Hajoj, 32, from one ward of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.[19] He and five other alleged collaborators had reportedly been transferred to the hospital from the central prison after Israel bombed the facility. A number of people were watching as one of the men fatally shot Hajoj in the head.   The International Crisis Group reported that the man was killed by his own family to “restore its honor.”[20] According to the New York Times, unidentified gunmen executed the five other detainees within 24 hours of Hajoj’s death.

Rather than arrest those responsible for extra-judicial executions, Hamas officials have made statements that appear to justify the killing of alleged collaborators.  On February 2, for example, Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu said, “The government will show no mercy to collaborators who stab our people in the back, and they will be held accountable according to the law.”[21] Al-Nunu added, “The government differentiates between violations of the law and those acts undertaken by the resistance during a time of war to protect itself from the danger of collaborators.”

Extra-Judicial Killings, Torture and Other Mistreatment

In addition to shooting deaths and maimings, Hamas security forces and unidentified assailants possibly linked to Hamas were also implicated in custodial killings and torture against perceived political opponents and others.

Human Rights Watch interviewed a Fatah activist who said he was badly beaten by Hamas security forces in the Beach refugee camp on December 29, 2008. “I was sitting with others listening to the radio around the fire at 9 p.m. when three masked men broke in,” he said, recalling that the men wore brown camouflage uniforms. He explained:

There were eight of us sitting there. We were all from Fatah.  Then three masked militants broke in. They were dressed in brown camouflage military uniforms; they all had guns.  They pointed their guns at us and cursed us, then they began beating us with iron rods, including a 10-year-old boy whom they hit in the face.  They said we were “collaborators” and “unfaithful.”  Then they took me outside, where there were four more men in masks.  They dragged me to a dark place in the vegetable market about 300 meters away.  They beat me with iron sticks and gun butts for 15 minutes.  They were yelling: “You are happy that Israel is bombing us!” until people came out of their houses, and they withdrew.[22]

In total, Palestinian human rights groups documented nine deaths by torture or severe beating in Gaza in January, February and March 2009. According to both the ICHR and the PCHR:

• A group of armed masked men forced Zahir Ahmad al-Za`anin, 40, from his home in Beit Hanoun on January 14; his body was found the following day at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.
• On January 18, gunmen who said they were members of the Hamas-run Internal Security Force arrested Hani Ibrahim Abu Reidah, 25, of Khuza`a. He was found injured in an area east of Khan Younis on January 22, and died after being transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.  His body bore marks of torture. 
• Armed men wearing masks grabbed Yunis Muhammad Abu Amrah, 36, from his home in Gaza City on January 24; his family found him later that day, severely beaten, in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. He died in al-Shifa hospital from his injuries on January 28.[23]
• On January 30, members of the Internal Security Force summoned and detained Jamil Shakura, 51, from Khan Yunis refugee camp.  After torturing and beating him on the head and body, security agents transferred Shakura to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where he died of a stroke on February 6.
• On February 6, masked men whom ICHR identified as Internal Security Force officers abducted Nihad Sa’adi al-Dabbaka, 47, from al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.  He died on February 9, with marks from apparent torture on his body. 
• On February 7, ‘Ata Yousef Abdul Wahhab al-Bur’i, 39, from the Beach refugee camp, died after men claiming to be police abducted and beat him severely on January 8.[24]
• On March 8, security forces took Jamil Nasser Assaf, 20, from his Gaza City home on charges of theft.  He was tortured at the al-Tufah police station and died on March 24.[25]

PCHR also reported that on the morning of March 15, Rafah police arrested 40-year-old Zayed ‘Ayesh Mabrouq Jaradat, on charges of drug possession. They detained him in the al-Quds Girls’ Secondary School, which became the de facto police headquarters after Israel bombed the Rafah police station. According to PCHR, members of the security services tortured Jaradat during his detention, and he was pronounced dead on arrival at Martyr Mohammed Yousif al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah on March 16. The body was transferred to the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where PCHR examined the body and saw bruising, particularly on the neck and shoulders, and that Jaradat’s toenails had been removed. [26]

Two other Gaza men died in February at the hands of masked gunmen, who in both cases were identified as members of Hamas security forces. The ICHR reported that, according to the victim’s family, Internal Security Force officers took Basheer 'Ilayyan al Zaytouneh, a 41-year-old resident of Gaza City, from his home on January 29. Zaytouneh’s family identified his body in al-Shifa hospital on February 2.[27] On February 26 at roughly 10 p.m., masked gunmen abducted Hamza Mahmoud al-Shoubaki, 40, from the al-Daraj neighborhood in the east of Gaza City; al-Shoubaki’s body was brought to al-Shifa hospital the next morning, with two gunshot wounds to the head, according to the PCHR. His wife identified the men who abducted him as members of the Internal Security Force.[28]

In a case reported in the media, the family of Usama Atallah, a teacher and Fatah supporter, said that gunmen who identified themselves as Hamas abducted Attalah from the family home in Gaza City on January 27.[29]  According to the Al-Jazeera English television network, two days later the family retrieved his body from the morgue at al-Shifa Hospital with signs of strangulation, blunt-force trauma to the head, and a gunshot wound to the shoulder.[30]

Human Rights Watch separately interviewed two men who said they had each witnessed unidentified men they believed to be from Hamas badly beat a suspected criminal on a Gaza street.  In the first case, men in civilian clothes whom the witness identified as Hamas members badly beat a suspected drug dealer with sticks and metal bars in Gaza City.  People on the street watched but did not intervene, the witness said: “What could people do? They are afraid.”[31]  In the second case, men whom the witness believed to be Hamas beat a suspected criminal in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City with sticks and bars.[32]  Both men believed the assailants came from Hamas because other armed groups could not operate in such a way publicly.

On March 10, the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported the alleged torture by Hamas police of ten members of Saraya al-Quds, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.[33] The paper reported that Hamas police detained the ten men, from Khan Yunis, and tortured them in order to coerce them to sign pledges that they would not fire rockets at Israel.

Since the end of December 2008, Fatah-run Palestinian security services in the West Bank have stepped up arbitrary arrests and harassment of Hamas members and supporters there.  The ICHR said it received 25 complaints in January 2009, and six complaints in February from West Bank residents who said they had been subjected to torture.[34]  On January 24, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank detained two journalists from a pro-Hamas television station, Al-Quds.[35] According to the PCHR, on February 8 West Bank security forces announced the death of Muhammad Abd al-Jamil al-Haj, 30, from Jalqamus, who had been arrested two days earlier. According to the ICHR, the Palestinian Legislative Council has formed an independent committee to investigate his death.[36]

United States and European Union donors who fund and train these forces have expressed no public criticism of these serious human rights violations.

Arbitrary Detention by House Arrests

According to the ICHR, from December 27, 2008, to the end of January, 2009, Hamas police ordered the house arrest of more than 150 Fatah members or supporters.  The PCHR said it had documented “hundreds of cases” in which Hamas authorities have imposed house arrest on Fatah activists and persons suspected of having committed a criminal offense.[37]

Human Rights Watch interviewed a student who said Hamas officials placed him under house arrest in late January, after the Israeli offensive had stopped.  “I was summoned to the medical clinic next door to the police station – the police use it now that the station was bombed,” the student said.[38] “They told me I was confined to my house for one month. I asked for a paper, because this means I will miss my exams and I need to show something to my university.  They refused to give me any paper.  They said I was arrested because I was a dishonorable citizen and a member of a dishonorable movement, and that if I leave my house they will not be responsible for my life.”