Hamas carried out mass public executions in Gaza on Monday, gruesome footage confirms, just hours after a major peace accord was signed, raising immediate concerns about the terror group’s commitment to the deal.
The executions, which the group claims targeted “criminals and collaborators with Israel,” appear to be part of a desperate effort by Hamas to reassert its control over the Palestinian enclave following the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Graphic video circulated Monday reportedly shows eight blindfolded, badly beaten men kneeling in a street before being shot dead by Hamas gunmen in front of a cheering crowd. The terror group offered no verifiable evidence to support the claims of collaboration, according to reporting by the BBC. Among the dead was reportedly Ahmad Zidan al-Tarabin, who allegedly recruited agents for a rival, non-Hamas-aligned militia, as reported by Israeli outlet ynet News.
The barbaric display came shortly after President Trump signed a document enshrining his 20-point peace plan, declaring the “end of an age of terror and death.” The peace deal included provisions for Hamas to disarm and surrender governance of Gaza, which the group has so far refused to do.
The deadly reprisals began even before the peace deal was finalized. On Sunday, reports out of Gaza indicated that 52 members of the powerful Dagmoush clan were killed in clashes with Hamas’ internal security forces. Twelve Hamas terrorists, including the son of senior official Bassem Naim, were also killed. Hamas militants reportedly used ambulances to storm the clan’s neighborhood, accusing them of collaboration with Israel.
“It’s a massacre. They’re dragging people away, children are screaming and dying, they’re burning our houses. What did we do wrong?” one clan member’s daughter said.
Following the IDF’s withdrawal, Hamas has actively targeted the various “clans,” or family-based armed groups, that gained influence during the recent conflict.
Earlier on Monday, President Trump suggested he had given Hamas a degree of latitude to manage internal security in Gaza “as it sees fit,” framing it as a necessary step for the return of remaining living hostages to Israel.
“They [Hamas] do want to stop the problems, and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “You have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished, and a lot of bad things can happen. So we want it to be — we want it to be safe. I think it’s going to be fine. Who knows for sure.”
However, President Trump shifted his tone on Tuesday, vowing to “disarm” Hamas if the group failed to lay down its weapons as stipulated in the peace plan.
“Well, they’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm, and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them,” Trump told journalists while hosting Argentine President Javier Milei. “I don’t have to explain that to you, but if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them. They know I’m not playing games. Okay?”
The public executions and ongoing internal violence cast a significant shadow over the viability of the recently signed peace agreement, raising serious questions about the immediate future of security and governance in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
