THE Hamas-administered criminal justice system in Gaza runs on arbitrary arrest, torture, unfair trials and other serious violations, a report examining its five-year rule of the tiny coastal strip has found.

Civilians are frequently tried in military courts in violation of international law, while prosecutors deny detainees access to lawyers, and support arrests without warrants and abusive interrogations, the Human Rights Watch report found.

The report documents how torture of detainees by Hamas security services has spread from internal security to general detectives and the drug squad.

And since Hamas took sole control of Gaza in June 2007, it has executed at least three men convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under torture.

''Former detainees … were afraid to describe what had happened to them in custody, even on condition that their identities would be kept confidential,'' the report found.