Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinian courts in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip sentenced two men to death on Tuesday, legal sources and a human rights NGO in the enclave announced.
The Supreme Judicial Council in Gaza announced that a court in Gaza City and another in Deir al-Balah sentenced the two to death by hanging in unrelated cases.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said that in the first case a man was convicted of murdering his brother, while the second man was found guilty of premeditated murder.
The names of the individuals and their victims were not published.
Four people have already been sentenced to death since the beginning of the year in Gaza, PCHR said.
The NGO condemned what it called “excessive application of this punishment in the Gaza Strip in light of absence of fair trial guarantees”.
Hamas controls Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas runs the West Bank.
In theory, all execution orders in the Palestinian territories must be approved by Abbas, but the Islamist Hamas no longer recognises his legitimacy.
The authorities in Gaza executed three men behind closed doors in May, the first time the death penalty had been carried out in the enclave since 2014, drawing condemnation from the United Nations.
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