The UN has expressed alarm after Hamas said it intended to implement a number of death sentences in Gaza, where the Palestinian Islamist group is dominant, BBC News reports.

The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, said he had serious doubts as to whether capital trials there met fair trial standards.

Mladenov added that he was disturbed by reports that some of the executions might be carried out in public.

One Palestinian group has documented 67 executions in Gaza since 2007.

However, that figure does not include the killings of people accused by Hamas of being collaborators during wartime. At least 25 were shot dead after the 2014 conflict with Israel.

On Wednesday, May 25, Hamas-affiliated members of the Palestinian parliament announced they had approved a measure allowing executions to be carried out in Gaza without having first been ratified by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank.