Hamas-led groups execute four for looting aid trucks amid some Gaza dissent

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Hamas has executed four men for looting some of the aid trucks that have begun entering Gaza, sources familiar with the incident said on Monday, as a clan leader in southern Gaza issued a challenge to the militant group over guarding the convoys.

One source said the four were involved in an incident last week when six security officials were killed by an Israeli airstrike as they were working to prevent gang members from hijacking aid trucks.

"The four criminals, who were executed, were involved in the crimes of looting and causing the death of members of a force tasked with securing aid trucks," one of the sources told Reuters.

Seven other suspects were being pursued, according to a statement issued by an umbrella group identifying itself as the "Palestinian Resistance".

Humanitarian assistance began trickling into Gaza last week after Israel yielded to international pressure and lifted a blockade it imposed in early March that has left half a million people facing starvation, according to a global hunger monitor.

Aid groups have said that deliveries have been hampered by looting, but they have blamed Israel for creating a situation in which hundreds of thousands of people have been driven to desperation by the blockade.

Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies, and the issue of control over the aid trucks has been hotly disputed.

Israeli military officials say the security teams put in place by Hamas are there to take delivery of the supplies not to protect them, but it has provided no evidence of Hamas looting since it eased its blockade last week.

Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, has long cracked down hard on signs of dissent among Palestinians in Gaza but it has faced sizeable protests in recent months over the war and faced challenges to its control by armed groups of looters, some of whom it has punished by shooting them in the legs in public.

Yasser Abu Shabab, a leader of a large clan in the Rafah area, now under full Israeli army control, said he was building up a force to secure aid deliveries into some parts of the enclave. He published images of his armed men receiving and organising the traffic of aid trucks.

Hamas, which is unable to operate in the Rafah area where Abu Shabab has some controls, has accused him of looting international aid trucks in previous months and maintaining connections with Israel.

On a Facebook page in his name Abu Shabab denies that he has acted as an alternative to the government or other institutions and rejects accusations of looting.

On the page Abu Shabab is described as a "grassroots leader who stood up against corruption and looting" and who protected aid convoys.

But a Hamas security official called Abu Shabab a "tool used by the Israeli occupation to fragment the Palestinian internal front".

Asked if the U.N. was working with Abu Shabab, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said it did not pay anyone to guard aid trucks.

"What we do is talk to communities regularly, build trust and engage with the authorities on the urgent need for more aid to come in through more routes and more crossings," the spokesperson said.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Hugh Lawson)