Four get death penalty in Gaza over spying for Israel

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO, said that testimonies that it had collected from the Gaza war painted a “troubling picture” of the Israeli army’s policy of “indiscriminate fire”, which, it asserted, had “directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians”. The majority of those killed are in the West Bank, with Israeli forces identifying 91 as attackers.

The Israeli Army claimed that they targeted a “military unit” that was planning to plant explosives on the Gaza-Israeli borders.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who took power from Morsi, accuses the Hamas movement which governs the Gaza Strip of aiding militants in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula in carrying out attacks on Egyptian military personnel, allegations that Hamas has denied.

Peter Lerner, a head Israeli army spokesman, in a statement following the incident said: “Israeli forces guarding the border with Gaza face a growing threat from hostile terror groups attempting to destabilize the situation on the ground”. Since the PA was formed in 1994, 160 death sentences have been handed out by Palestinian courts, 80% if which were carried out in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Strip has remained largely calm, though violent protests have broken out along the heavily guarded border and a number of Palestinians have been killed during clashes with Israeli forces.

Over the past few months, the focus of Israeli-Palestinian violence has largely shifted from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel, where Palestinians have carried out stabbings, vehicle rammings and shootings that have killed 24 Israelis and one USA citizen.

Israel’s blockade as well as a lack of donor contributions and coordination between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have been blamed for the delays.

The wave of attacks has been partly fuelled by Palestinian frustration over the collapse of peace talks, the growth of Jewish settlements on land they seek for a future state and Islamist calls for the destruction of Israel.

On Tuesday, Hamas agreed for the first time to hand over control of the Rafah border crossing, which is the only gateway to the outside world the Gazans have, to a national committee that will be composed of the Palestinian factions and will be accountable to the Palestinian government.