GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Hamas-controlled military court in Gaza has sentenced six people to death for allegedly collaborating with Israel on a failed covert operation in Gaza on Nov. 11, in which six Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

Numerous rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, condemned the verdicts, especially since Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been an outspoken opponent of capital punishment. In June, Abbas signed seven international conventions and treaties, among them the 1989 UN Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims to abolish the death penalty. Hamas immediately rejected his action.

Hamas, which administers the Gaza Strip, has ignored the protocol. Mohammad Abu Hashem, a lawyer with the Palestine Center for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor that just since the protocol was signed, civil and military courts in Gaza have sentenced 13 people to die, and that figure doesn't include the six just condemned for allegedly colluding with Israel.

He noted that the criminal codes in place in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip are different, but each provides for the death penalty. "The 1979 Revolutionary Code of Criminal Procedure applicable in the Palestinian Authority (PA) territories sets the death penalty as punishment for 45 crimes," he said. "The 1936 Criminal Code applicable in the Gaza Strip, and the Jordanian 1960 Criminal Code applicable in the West Bank, also provide for this punishment for 15 civil crimes.”