The Palestinian Authority on Tuesday night condemned recent Hamas summary executions of Palestinians in Gaza as “heinous crimes” and urged a return of “legitimate” Palestinian leadership to stem the chaos roiling the Strip amid the ceasefire with Israel.

While the PA strongly denounced the executions, US President Donald Trump appeared to downplay the terror group’s crackdown, saying the killings “didn’t bother me much.” On Sunday, returning to the US from Israel and Egypt, he told reporters he had approved Hamas playing a temporary policing role in Gaza.

Hamas on Monday night published a video showing its armed personnel publicly executing eight blindfolded, bound and kneeling men in the street, with the group saying that its forces were “carrying out the death sentence against a number of collaborators and outlaws in Gaza City.”

The stark images, showing the gunmen killing the men at close range in a busy street before a crowd of onlookers, quickly went viral on social media.

The office of the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the summary executions as “heinous crimes” that have no justification and reflect Hamas’s insistence on ruling through force and terror.

It also urged that these violations must be stopped immediately, and said “the restoration of law and the legitimate institutions of the Palestinian people in Gaza is the only way to end the state of chaos and rebuild national trust.”

The killings also triggered a rebuke from a Palestinian human rights group.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), a body established by the Palestinian Authority in 1993, issued a statement demanding an “end to extrajudicial and arbitrary executions in the Gaza........

© The Times of Israel