Mahmoud Ishtiwi, 34, a legendary Hamas fighter who during the 2014 war with Israel commanded 1,000 fighters and a massive network of tunnels, has been executed by his own comrades with three shots to the chest.
His family reports that while held he was tortured for months, suspended from a ceiling for hours, whipped, denied sleep.
Hamas published a statement announcing his execution on February 7th.
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The New York Times reports that he was charged with moral turpitude—a code word for homosexuality and that he may have mutilated his own body “in a desperate kind of last testament.”
Ishtiwi, is survived by two wives, three children, and a mother who posted a tearful video begging Mohammed Deif, a Hamas military commander who survived numerous Israeli attempts on his life and was sheltered by her own family, to spare her son.
“The Ishtiwi case raises serious questions about who’s in charge in Gaza, Hamas’s civilian authorities or its military,” said Sari Bashi, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch. “Hamas should conduct a genuine investigation into Ishtiwi’s death, prosecute those responsible, and shut down any units operating outside the law.”
The Times report noted that Ishtiwi is not “the first member of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, to be killed by his own.”
“What was unprecedented was the way his relatives spoke out publicly about it.”