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Hamas Gives Israel’s Agents One Week to Repent | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Palestinian fighters from the Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, stand inside an underground tunnel in Gaza on August 18, 2014. (REUTERS/Mohammed Salem)


Ramallah – Hamas said on Tuesday it would offer a “week of redemption” for collaborators with Israel to avoid arrest and punishment, within a campaign to avenge last month’s assassination of Mazen Faqha, a senior official in Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas’ military wing.

A security official in Gaza Strip said that Hamas security bodies have launched a major campaign against “agents” for Israel, during which several collaborators have been arrested.

However, the organization announced giving amnesty to those who turn themselves in to the security forces over the next week.

Hamas-led Ministry of Interior and National Security said in a statement that those – who “fell victim of the Occupation and its intelligence services” – may turn themselves in until next Tuesday “for the sake of national and social responsibility.”

According to the statement, “those, who do turn themselves in, will be provided legal and security protection and their cases will be handled with complete confidentiality and outside of the security headquarters.”

It warned however that agents, who do not surrender, will “be in the hands of the security services and considered forewarned.”

Last month, unidentified gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot dead Faqha, a senior Hamas official, who was freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap, the interior ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.

Faqha’s assassination took place in the Tell al-Hama neighborhood, Iyad al-Bozum, an interior ministry spokesman in Hamas-ruled Gaza, said.

While Hamas insists that Israel is behind the assassination, Israeli Minister of Defense, Avigor Liberman, said that his country was not involved in the murder, adding that Hamas was “known for its internal assassinations”.

Hamas quickly rejected the claims, stressing that no one was responsible for the crime apart from Israel.