Hamas calls for an international investigation into the executions of 137 Palestinian civilians in Gaza

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday for an international investigation into the “summary executions” it accuses the Israeli army of committing in the Gaza Strip, stressing that it has recorded at least 137 such cases since the outbreak of war on October 7.

The Hamas government, in power in the coastal Palestinian enclave since 2007, said it had collected testimonies that “the Israeli occupation army carried out summary executions of 137 Palestinian civilians in Gaza City and sectors in the north”.

Hamas accused the Israeli army in particular of “digging a large pit in the eastern part of Gaza City and putting dozens of civilians it captured in it, before executing them by shooting them and bulldozing the pit.” It did not specify when.

The organization called for the establishment of “international teams to investigate the crimes of the occupation and its summary executions.”

When contacted by the Israeli army, a spokesman for the Chahal said that they were “not aware” of the incident. “With more specific information, we could see it more clearly,” he added.

The “Hamas terrorist organization” has proven that it “does not pay much attention to truth or accuracy,” according to the same source.

Earlier yesterday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said dozens of civilians were killed and dozens more “executed” this week, many in the middle of the road, during an Israeli army ground operation in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army, when asked about the issue by the French News Agency, did not specifically respond to the allegations of civilian killings.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday called on Israel to conduct an investigation into the “possible commission of a war crime” by the Israeli army after receiving “disturbing information” about the death of “11 unarmed Palestinians” in Gaza City. Israel responded that this accusation was “unfounded and untrue”.

At least 20,258 people, the vast majority of them women, children, and teenagers, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli army offensive, according to the latest figures from the Hamas health ministry.

The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by members of a Hamas’ military arm on southern sectors of Israeli territory that left some 1,140 people dead, the deadliest since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.