The Hamas accountability crisis is deepening as allegations of extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary arrests and public intimidation reveal the dangerous collapse of law and order in Gaza. Amnesty International’s latest investigation documents nine extrajudicial executions and one unlawful killing involving Hamas-affiliated forces, while a United Nations investigation identified 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence between August 2024 and January 2026.
The findings emerge within a wider humanitarian and institutional catastrophe. Israeli military operations have destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, displaced much of Gaza’s population and severely weakened courts, police services and administrative institutions. At the same time, Hamas and armed forces operating under its authority continue to exercise coercive power through security structures that Amnesty and United Nations investigators say have often operated without credible judicial safeguards.
Gaza’s civilians are therefore exposed to multiple layers of insecurity. They face Israeli military attacks, displacement and deprivation, while also confronting the threat of arbitrary detention, torture, public punishment and execution by Palestinian armed and security forces. The destruction of formal institutions may help explain the deterioration of public order, but it cannot justify killing people without trial or treating accusations as proof of guilt.
The central issue is not whether Gaza faces a security emergency. It plainly does. The deeper question is whether the emergency is being used to replace law with armed authority and due process with punishment. Amnesty’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, Erika Guevara-Rosas, captured the humanitarian dimension of the problem by warning that Gaza’s traumatized population “cannot be subjected to further killings, abuses and cruelty.”
United Nations findings expose wider pattern
The United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s June 2026 findings provide the broader statistical framework for understanding the Amnesty investigation. The commission documented 249 cases of executions and severe physical violence in Gaza between August 2024 and January 2026. At least 108 people died and 384 were injured.
At least 60 of those cases involved Hamas-affiliated forces. The United Nations identified the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Sahm Unit and the Rad’a Force among the structures connected to executions, beatings, maiming and other forms of severe violence. The commission also reported that some punishments were staged publicly, recorded and circulated through Hamas-affiliated communication channels.
The figures should not be interpreted as a complete count. Gaza’s destroyed communications systems, mass displacement, restricted access and widespread fear make documentation extremely difficult. The number of verified cases is therefore better understood as a minimum indication of the scale of the problem rather than a final total.
The United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that the documented conduct could amount to the war crimes of murder and torture. Its findings indicate that violence was not limited to direct battlefield confrontations. It also involved beatings, kneecappings, broken bones, public executions and other forms of punishment imposed on people accused of collaboration, looting, criminal activity or political opposition.
This pattern matters because it indicates the emergence of parallel systems of coercion. Where courts are absent or ineffective, armed units appear to have assumed investigative, prosecutorial and judicial functions. The same structures that detained suspects sometimes controlled their interrogations, determined their guilt and carried out their punishment.
Public executions as instruments of fear
Public execution is both a killing and a political message. It communicates that an armed authority retains the power to decide who lives, who dies and who should be publicly branded as a traitor. In Gaza, the recording and circulation of punishments appear to have amplified that message.
On 1 July 2026, a group calling itself “Resistance Security” announced the public execution of a Palestinian man accused of collaborating with Israel. His identity was initially disclosed through initials, but his full name and personal details were later circulated by Hamas-affiliated social-media accounts.
The man was accused of providing Israeli authorities with information about senior Al-Qassam Brigades commanders, including Ezziddine al-Haddad. Hamas-linked accounts claimed that the intelligence contributed to the killing of the commander and Palestinian civilians. “Resistance Security” said it had exhausted what it called “revolutionary procedures” and internal investigations before carrying out the killing.
The group’s language suggested that the execution formed part of a wider campaign. Its official Telegram channel described the action as the beginning of a “large-scale security campaign” and warned that more people accused of collaboration would be executed. Days later, affiliated channels announced the arrest and interrogation of another alleged informant and indicated that the person might be killed “within days.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office condemned the 1 July killing and expressed concern over the phrase “after exhausting all revolutionary procedures.” OHCHR said the language raised serious concerns that the killing was a summary or extrajudicial execution and that it continued a pattern of unlawful killings by de facto authorities and pro-Hamas security units since the October 2025 ceasefire.
The use of the term “revolutionary procedures” is especially revealing. It suggests a parallel legal vocabulary in which armed groups claim authority to investigate, judge and execute outside recognized courts. Such procedures may be presented as necessary responses to war, but in practice they remove the safeguards intended to prevent false accusations, torture and revenge killings.
The Dughmush case and surrender guarantees
The execution of eight members of the Dughmush family provides the most detailed example of how Gaza’s security vacuum can turn a local confrontation into collective punishment.
The incident began around 10 October 2025, shortly after Israel and Hamas announced a ceasefire. Hamas-affiliated forces attempted to remove members of the family from a field hospital near Al-Sabra in Gaza City. The family was accused of looting the hospital, storing weapons and explosives there, and collaborating with Israel.
Armed clashes continued for approximately one week as Hamas forces surrounded the family’s area. At least four Dughmush family members and at least one Hamas member were reportedly killed during the fighting. Amnesty also received footage showing homes in the area allegedly looted, burned and vandalized by Hamas forces and their affiliates.
On 13 October, eight unarmed Dughmush family members were publicly executed on Al-Thalathini Street. Amnesty verified footage showing blindfolded and shackled men being dragged into an open area by armed and masked men. Several appeared partially undressed and visibly injured. They were then shot at close range.
A relative told Amnesty that the men had surrendered after receiving assurances that they would receive a fair trial.
“The eight men had turned themselves in after being promised a fair trial, only to be publicly executed two hours later,”
she said. Her account, if confirmed, would indicate that the killings were not battlefield deaths but deliberate executions following surrender and detention.
The wife of one victim said that both her husband and son were killed.
“Both my husband and son were executed. My son was tortured before his execution, and his nails were broken… My husband was a kind, honourable man who always resisted the Israeli occupation … I want everybody to know that our family are not collaborators and those who ordered their killing should be brought before justice,”
she said.
Relatives who attended the burials reported visible signs of torture on the bodies. Some family members later said that Hamas officials telephoned them, apologized and suggested that certain people may have been killed by mistake. That claim raises a further question: if the victims were mistakenly killed, who made the mistake, and why has no transparent accountability process followed?
The case also illustrates the dangers of collective punishment. Even if some members of the family had been involved in criminal activity or collaboration, those allegations could not lawfully justify the execution of other relatives without individual evidence and fair proceedings.
Al-Saftawi killing highlights impunity
The killing of Hisham al-Saftawi shows how the accountability problem extends beyond public executions. Al-Saftawi was a 57-year-old man from the Al-Bureij refugee camp who was shot during an arrest operation on 17 October 2025.
According to his wife, Najah, around 30 masked armed men entered the family home shortly after dawn prayers. The men identified themselves as members of the Al-Qassam Brigades. When al-Saftawi refused to comply with an arrest order, one of the men shot him in the back.
A man who appeared to be the group’s commander reportedly asked the shooter, “Who ordered you to shoot?” Al-Saftawi died in hospital the next day.
His brother, Said al-Saftawi, questioned the credibility of a Hamas-led inquiry.
“You cannot trust the executioner to investigate itself. We call for an independent investigation and for those who shot my brother and those who ordered his arrest to be held accountable,”
he said.
Hamas confirmed that an investigation had been opened but described the death as an “accidental” shooting, claiming that al-Saftawi had attempted to escape. It also said that he was wanted for criminal offences. Amnesty reported that the family had not been informed of the investigation’s findings and that no one had been held accountable.
The disagreement between the family’s account and Hamas’s explanation cannot be resolved through competing statements alone. It requires an independent investigation capable of examining the arrest order, identifying the armed personnel involved, reviewing medical and ballistic evidence and determining whether the shooting was intentional or excessive.
Emergency cannot erase due process
Hamas has reportedly defended some actions as “exceptional measures” under a “state of necessity.” The argument is that Israel’s military operations destroyed Gaza’s courts and security institutions, while criminal gangs, alleged collaborators and armed rivals created an urgent security threat.
The context is undeniably severe. Israeli attacks have damaged police stations, courts and administrative facilities, while displacement and the killing of security personnel have made ordinary policing extremely difficult. The United Nations Human Rights Office reported that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since the October 2025 ceasefire announcement and said continuing attacks on police and security personnel had contributed to the breakdown of law enforcement.
But institutional collapse does not suspend the right to life or remove the prohibition against torture. Amnesty’s position is that suspected collaborators and alleged criminals must still receive a fair hearing, access to legal safeguards and protection from arbitrary execution.
Guevara-Rosas stated that
“unlawful killings can never be justified”
and that the rights to life, freedom from torture, fair trial and due process must be protected “at all times,” including during emergencies and active military hostilities.
This principle is particularly important in Gaza because accusations of collaboration can carry enormous political and emotional weight. Israel’s intelligence operations, targeted killings and use of Palestinian intermediaries have created genuine security fears. Yet those fears also make false accusations, personal vendettas and factional score-settling more likely.
Hamas’s accountability credibility gap
Hamas officials have said preliminary investigations were opened into the Dughmush case and al-Saftawi’s death. Dr Mousa Abu Marzouk, head of Hamas’s International and Legal Relations Department, reportedly described the Dughmush killings as an “immediate reaction without referring to higher authorities.”
That explanation may suggest that local forces exceeded their authority. It does not answer whether senior commanders tolerated the conduct, failed to prevent it or later protected those responsible. Under the principle of command responsibility, accountability can extend beyond the individual who pulled the trigger when commanders knew or should have known about abuses and failed to stop or punish them.
Amnesty shared a summary of its findings with Hamas leadership in November 2025 and sent a follow-up inquiry in July 2026. Hamas referred to investigations but did not disclose their findings. Amnesty said it had received no further response by the time it published its report.
The absence of public conclusions, prosecutions or disciplinary measures has created a credibility gap. Internal investigations are not automatically illegitimate, but they must be independent, transparent and capable of examining senior officials. An investigation controlled by the same political and armed structures accused of abuse cannot easily satisfy victims, relatives or international observers.
Accountability must include all parties
Condemning Hamas-affiliated abuses does not reduce Israel’s obligations or excuse alleged Israeli violations. Gaza’s law-and-order collapse has been shaped by war, occupation, mass displacement, destruction of civilian institutions and restrictions on humanitarian access.
Amnesty continues to call on Israel to end what it describes as genocide, apartheid and unlawful occupation, facilitate humanitarian assistance and enable displaced Palestinians to return safely. Israel rejects such allegations and maintains that its military operations are directed against Hamas and other armed groups.
At the same time, Hamas-affiliated forces cannot invoke Israeli violations to justify their own executions and torture. The legal and moral responsibilities are parallel. Israeli forces must be investigated for alleged unlawful attacks, killings, forced displacement and destruction of civilian infrastructure, while Hamas and affiliated groups must face investigation for executions, arbitrary detention, torture and repression.
The United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s formulation is important because it recognizes that Palestinian civilians are victims of abuses by multiple actors. Gaza’s residents should not be forced to choose which perpetrator deserves condemnation. Their rights require protection from Israeli military violence, Hamas repression and abuses by other armed groups.
From impunity to independent justice
Ending the Hamas accountability crisis will require more than promises of internal review. Independent investigators must be given access to detention sites, crime scenes, medical records and digital evidence. Witnesses and relatives must be protected from retaliation, while victims’ names and addresses must not be circulated as a form of punishment.
A credible justice process should identify both direct perpetrators and those who ordered, authorized or enabled the abuses. Families must receive information about the fate of detained relatives, the findings of investigations and the reasons for any prosecutions or closures.
Gaza’s courts, police services and civil administration also require reconstruction. That process should not restore security structures without safeguards. It must establish institutions capable of enforcing law while protecting civilians from political repression, torture and extrajudicial punishment.
The most important lesson from the Amnesty investigation is that law and order cannot be defined by the ability to arrest, intimidate or execute. Security without due process is another form of insecurity. In Gaza, where civilians already face overwhelming external violence, the absence of accountability within Palestinian governing and armed structures risks turning institutional collapse into a permanent system of fear.
