GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The government in the Gaza Strip announced Tuesday that two residents accused of collaborating with the Israeli occupation have been executed.

Gaza's Interior Ministry told Ma'an that execution orders were issued in 2004 and were postponed several times until the crimes of the accused could be thoroughly proven.

The two prisoners were executed on Tuesday morning. They were not identified.

After seven years of investigation the courts decided that the accused must be executed because they have committed crimes against their nation and homeland, the ministry added.

Hamas officials told Reuters the two men, a father and son, had confessed to providing intelligence that helped Israel track down Palestinians including Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, who was killed in a 2004 airstrike on his car.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights strongly condemned the death sentences, saying they were illegal because the ratification of death sentences is an exclusive power of the president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Implementation of death sentences without the president's ratification "constitutes a violation of the law and constitution. There is no justification for the implementation of such sentences," the group said.

Three people have been put to death in Gaza this year and five in 2010.