Hamas terrorists in Gaza
Hamas terrorists in GazaIsrael news photo: Flash 90

A Palestinian Authority Arab found guilty of "collaborating" with Israel has been sentenced to death by a military court in Gaza, Hamas’s interior ministry said on Thursday, according to AFP.

The defendant, identified only by his initials KC, was "condemned to capital punishment by hanging for collaborating with the Zionist occupier," ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan announced on Facebook.

It was the fifth death sentence handed down by the Hamas authorities in Gaza since the beginning of the year, reported AFP.

Authorities of the movement, which violently took power in Gaza in 2007, carried out their first executions in April 2010 when they hanged two men convicted of collaborating with Israel.

In March, Hamas said it had a list of collaborators but offered a one-month amnesty for informers to give themselves up in return for leniency.

The terror group announced in April that it had begun arresting suspected "collaborators" with Israel following the amnesty period and indicated that the campaign had been “a success.”

Approximately two weeks after the amnesty campaign was announced, Hamas sentenced a man to death by strangulation after he was convicted of providing information to “hostile elements” in Israel.

In November, during Israel’s counterterrorism Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza, the Hamas government executed seven such collaborators without trial.

Six of the seven were publicly executed, with witnesses saying the men were pushed from a vehicle and shot. Pictures from Gaza showed the body of one of the men being dragged behind a motorcycle.

Hamas was publicly condemned for the summary executions, and its political bureau issued an official apology.