A Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip said Friday it had killed a relative who had helped Israel track down and kill three senior Hamas operatives, including one related to the man.
In a statement, the family said it had shot Ahmed Barhoum in the city of Rafah after it was tipped off by one of the militant organizations operating in Gaza that he had provided information to Israel. The statement said this information guided an Israeli airstrike during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
"In light of our religious and moral commitment we have executed the collaborator Ahmed Barhoum after he was handed over by the resistance factions," the statement said, without giving the name of the group that had caught him.
The family said it had listened to Barhoum's confession and had seen the evidence against him. The Barhoums are one of Rafah's largest families and well known for their closeness to Palestinian terrorist groups.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the enclave, issued a statement praising the Barhoum family's action as illustrating "its nobleness and deep affiliation with the [anti-Israel] resistance."
The IDF declined to comment.
Since taking power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has sentenced 109 people to death and executed at least 25. Palestinian and international human rights groups have repeatedly condemned such uses of the death penalty, and have urged Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement to abolish it.
