January 30, 2009

Hamas Killing Civilians During And After IDF's Operation "Cast Lead"

World is silent

Evidence is emerging of a wave of reprisal attacks and killings inside Gaza that have left dozens dead and more wounded in the wake of Israel's war.

Among the dead are Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israeli military. Others include criminals who were among the 600 prisoners to escape from Gaza City's main jail when it was bombed as the war began. Their attackers are thought to be their victims' relatives

During and after the war, there have also been attacks on security officials from Fatah, the bitter rival of Hamas, the Islamist movement in control of the Gaza Strip. One witness told the Guardian how her brother, a Fatah military intelligence officer, was shot three times in the legs in an apparent punishment attack by gunmen from Hamas's armed wing.[...]

One woman from near Zeitoun, south of Gaza City, described how masked men with ID cards showing they were members of the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas armed wing, shot her brother in the legs. The family had fled the house but returned on 18 January, the first day of the Israeli ceasefire. At 8pm several gunmen appeared at the gate asking for her brother, a 36-year-old Fatah military intelligence officer who had not been working since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The men searched the house for weapons, but found none and later left.

Early the next morning they returned. "They started firing in the air," said the 23-year-old sister, who declined to give her name for fear of further attacks.

"They asked him to put his hands up.They fired one shot into his left knee. He fell to the floor and started screaming and saying: 'I didn't do anything.'"

He was then shot in the right leg and again in the left. "They were holding us back and we were watching him bleeding," she said. The victim is now in a Cairo hospital after two operations on his legs.

Hamas, the darling of the left.