User:Anonymous Dissident/January 2009 Gaza attacks

A series of related attacks occurred within Gaza during late January, 2009, in the midst of the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict. The attacks, which ranged from beatings to shootings, left up to 50 dead and appeared to be acts of reprisal. The primary targets were Palestinians suspected of Israeli collaboration during the war and members of the Fatah political party. No group has as yet accepted responsibility for the violence, but there is evidence to suggest that Hamas, the political party currently in control of the Gaza Strip, was involved. Several other isolated assaults were directed toward inmates who escaped from prison after the December, 2008 bombings of Gaza.

Israeli collaborators
A great number of the recent attacks affected individuals who were suspected of being Israeli informants during the war. Hamas has denied its connection to these attacks, though it admitted that it had been making related arrests in an attempt to re-assert its authority over Gaza. According to a Hamas spokesperson, "The internal security service was instructed to track collaborators and hit them hard. They arrested dozens of collaborators who attempted to strike the resistance by giving information to the occupation about the fighters."

Another Hamas official said, "Maybe some of them were killed because they were acting against the population, against the resistance." A report in the Qatar-based newspaper, A-Sharq, also quoted Moussa Abu Marzuk, a high-ranking Hamas official, as confirming that the organisation had killed known collaborators.

Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported on January 30 that a number of Palestinian spies working in Gaza for Israel had been "intercepted" by Hamas. The information these agents fed to the Israeli military was said to have been used "carelessly", and this may have lead to their exposure and subsequent execution.

A human rights group based in Ramallah decried the attacks, releasing a statement that read, "A number of citizens have been extra-judicially executed during and after the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip...Fire was opened on affected citizens at a close distance. In addition, individuals in official uniform or masked persons opened fire on people's legs, severely beat others, imposed house arrests, and threatened to punish citizens along with their families if they would not comply."

Members of Fatah
Several members and security officials of the Fatah political party in Gaza were also attacked. The party released a statement laying blame on Hamas, who had publicly accused Fatah of Israeli collaboration during the war. They claimed that the attacks had consisted of "shooting at the feet of Fatah members, brutal crimes of execution and throwing the bodies in the rubble of destruction". Hamas directly responded to Fatah's statement, saying, "These are familiar lies and false allegations from Fatah and the forces of sedition."

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has since stated that it had credible evidence to prove that Hamas had been responsible for the killing of six members of the Fatah and the non-fatal shootings and beatings of some 35 others.

Prisoner killings
Earlier in the Israel-Gaza conflict, Gaza's main prison was almost entirely destroyed after a series of Israeli bombings and a great number of the inmates in this prison were able to escape. Other isolated attacks, also believed to have been acts of retribution, have since been directed toward these escaped criminals. These individual attacks are reported to have been made by friends or family of victims of the prisoners, or those otherwise affiliated with them before their detainment. Two shootings have been confirmed so far.