The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday called for an international investigation into the “summary executions” it accuses the Israeli army of carrying out in the Gaza Strip, stressing that it has recorded at least 137 such cases since the outbreak of war on October 7.

The Hamas government, in power in the coastal Palestinian enclave since 2007, said it had gathered testimony that “the Israeli occupation army carried out summary executions of 137 Palestinian civilians in Gaza City and areas of the north.”

Hamas in particular accused the Israeli army of “opening a large pit in the eastern part of Gaza City and putting inside dozens of civilians it captured, before executing them by shooting them and bulldozing the pit”. He did not specify when.

He called for the creation of “international teams to investigate the crimes of the occupation and its summary executions”.

Agence France-Presse says it was unable to independently verify the allegations.

When contacted by the Israeli military, a spokesman for Chahal said he was “not aware” of the incident. “With more specific information, we could see it more clearly,” he added.

The “terrorist organization Hamas” has proven that it “doesn’t care much about truth or accuracy,” according to the same source.

Earlier yesterday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kindra said dozens of civilians had been killed and dozens more “executed” this week, many in the middle of the road, during an Israeli army ground operation in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army, asked about the issue by AFP, did not specifically respond to the accusations of civilian executions.

He assured, however, that his strikes “against military targets” comply with “the rules of international law” and are carried out after assessing that “accidental damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure will not be excessive, compared to the military advantage expected as result of the attack”.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday called on Israel to investigate “the possible commission of a war crime” by the Israeli military after receiving “disturbing information” about the deaths of “11 unarmed Palestinians” in Gaza City. Israel responded that this charge is “baseless and untrue”.

At least 20,258 people, the vast majority of them women, children and teenagers, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli military offensive, according to the latest figures from the Hamas Health Ministry.

The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack by members of the military arm of Hamas in southern sectors of Israeli territory that left an estimated 1,140 dead, the deadliest since the 1948 Jewish state.