GAZA CITY: A military court in the Gaza Strip on Sunday sentenced seven people to death by hanging for “collaboration” with Israel, the coastal enclave’s interior ministry said.

The court also sentenced seven others to “life imprisonment with hard labour”, which in Gaza amounts to 25 years, the ministry said in a statement.

Palestinian militant group Hamas controls Gaza, and the military court there has regularly issued death sentences for people found guilty of “collaboration” with Israel.

Under Palestinian law, a death sentence requires the approval of the president of the Palestinian Authority which is headquartered in the occupied West Bank.

A military court sentences seven others to ‘life imprisonment with hard labour’

But since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 it has repeatedly ignored this, and last September executed two Palesti­nians for “collaboration” with Israel as well as three others for murder.

In April, two people were sentenced to death and four others were given life sentences on the same charges of collaborating with Israel. At least 17 death sentences were issued in 2022 in the Gaza Strip.

Israel and fighter groups in Gaza including Hamas have fought several wars over the past 15 years.

Some 2.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli-led blockade since Hamas rose to power.

US surgeons in Gaza

A team of US orthopaedic surgeons is visiting the Gaza Strip to perform a series of joint replacement operations and provide training to local doctors.

Khaled Saleh, president of the US-based non-profit Fajr Scientific, said the visit would help patients immobilised by joint problems and chronic pain, as well as those in wheelchairs or who use a cane to walk.

The five-day mission aimed to operate on 150 patients, train local surgeons, and donate $4 million worth of vital equipment.

“Our hope is to restore their function and in doing so restore their hope in the fact that they can be active members of their families and their society,” Saleh said as he exited a surgery theatre at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

Economic sanctions and years of blockade have weakened the economy of the Gaza Strip and left major holes in the health system, with long waiting lists for orthopaedic surgery.

The visit by the US team, hosted by the Gaza health ministry, was aimed at building up the capability of local surgical teams, said Fajr Scientific chief executive Mosab Nasser.

“The purpose is not only to do the surgeries by themselves, as much as it is training and building the local capabilities so they will also be a help in doing more surgeries as we progress,” he said.

Halima Abu Hayya, 57, said she had waited three years to get a knee joint replacement, because she couldn’t afford expensive treatment outside Gaza, and the numbers on patient waiting lists at Gaza hospitals were huge.

“I am hopeful. They told me I would soon walk without pain and that I would not have to worry about losing my knee,” the mother of four said a day after undergoing surgery.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2023