Hamza Mahmoud al-Shoubaki, 40, was abducted by unidentified...

Hamza Mahmoud al-Shoubaki, 40, was abducted by unidentified gunmen and subsequently died. According to investigations conducted by PCHR, masked gunmen abducted Hamza al-Shoubaki, from the al-Daraj neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. The following day, al-Shoubaki's body was brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after he had been shot dead by two gunshots to the head. On July 25, 2008, al-Shoubaki was arrested by Hamas’ Internal Security Service. "They came early in the day to our home and they took Hamza away without saying why," Al-Shoubaki's wife told Australian newspaper The Age on March 14. Mr Shoubaki had been accused of collaborating with the Government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He was a vocal supporter of Fatah, and was in almost daily phone contact with his brother, a senior officer in the Government. Mrs Shoubaki said that for four months after he was taken away, she could get no explanation of why he had been detained or where he was being held. Then, in early December, he called, saying he was being held in an Internal Security Service compound at al-Saraya, near Gaza City. Mrs Shoubaki described her shock when she visited him. "At first I nearly didn't recognise him. There were many signs of torture. He was pale and bruised and he had trouble walking," she said. He had been regularly punched and kicked, intermittently deprived of food and sleep, hung from the ceiling for hours on end - by his feet and his arms, and on one case from the ceiling for several hours by one arm. Mrs Shoubaki said her husband had also been electrocuted and repeatedly had a gun held to his head to try to force a confession. "He said he had also been brought before the military court on a several occasions, but they were never able to prove anything about Hamza." On December 28, 2008, al-Shoubaki attempted to flee from the prison after the Israelis had bombarded al-Saraya compound, but he was picked up the same day by Hamas militants. They shot him through the back of both legs below the knee, then pushed him out of a car in the Sheikh Ejlin neighbourhood, south-west of Gaza City. “When he came to us, he was barely alive," Mrs Shoubaki said. In early February, intent on tracking down anyone they believed had collaborated with either Israel or the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the Internal Security Service launched a search for him. "On February 4 and February 18, a number of gunmen came to our house asking about my husband, but we had moved him and he was not at home," Mrs Shoubaki said. On February 26, al-Shoubaki decided to move again to what he thought he would be a safer location, but at 10pm that day, masked gunmen stormed his new hide-out. Around 8am the next day, a relative of Hamza's received a phone call from the Shifa Hospital to come and identify a man who was now in the morgue. It was Hamza. He had been shot twice in the head.