Dozens believed dead in reprisal attacks as Hamas retakes control
• Suspected collaborators shot during and after war
• Escaped criminals killed by relatives of their victims
- The Guardian, Friday 30 January 2009
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.
The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported yesterday that several Palestinian agents working in Gaza for the Israeli security services during the war had been killed, and cited one source as saying that agents were “intercepted” by Hamas because their intelligence had been used “carelessly” by the military. –more–
