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Two Days of Murder in Palestinian Towns (16.10.03)
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April 22 First Image: Palestinians gather around a suspected collaborator who was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Ramallah April 22, 2002. Second Image: In this image taken from video, a suspected Palestinian collaborator rolls over as he bleeds on the ground after being shot in the West Bank town of Ramallah Monday, April 22, 2002. According to witnesses, masked gunmen shot three men in the main square of Ramallah, accusing the men of having provided intelligence to the Israeli military, leading to the capture of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti last week. (AP Photo/APTN)
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April 23 First Image: Three Palestinian men, suspected informers for Israel, are dragged on the streets in the southern West Bank town of Hebron, Tuesday, April 23, 2002. Three suspected informers were shot and killed by Palestinians in retaliation for a helicopter missile attack late Monday, which killed Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Hebron Commander Marwan Zalloum and his bodyguard Samir Abu Ragap. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi) Second Image: Palestinians drag the body of a suspected collaborator in the West Bank city of Hebron, April 23, 2002. Photo by Loay Abu Haykel/Reuters Gunmen killed three men suspected of collaborating with Israel at the scene of an overnight Israeli missile strike that killed two Palestinian militants in Hebron. third Image: Palestinians drag the body of a suspected collaborator along a street in Hebron, West Bank, April 23, 2002. Gunmen killed three men suspected of collaborating with Israel at the scene of an overnight Israeli missile strike that resulted in the death of two Palestinian militants in Hebron. (Loay Abu Haykel/Reuters) Forth Image: A body of a suspected informer hangs by his foot from a power pole as a crowd, including children, watches, in the southern West Bank town of Hebron, Tuesday, April 23, 2002. Three Palestinians, suspected informers for Israel, were shot and killed in retaliation for an Israeli army helicopter gunship missile attack late Monday, which killed Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Hebron Commander Marwan Zalloum and his bodyguard Samir Abu Ragap. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) Fifth Image: Palestinians drag the body of a suspected collaborator along a street in Hebron, West Bank, April 23, 2002. Gunmen killed three men suspected of collaborating with Israel at the scene of an overnight Israeli missile strike that resulted in the death of two Palestinian militants in Hebron. REUTERS/Loay Abu Haykel
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Militants Kill Palestinian Collaborator (6.7.03)
Washington Times
Palestinian militants Sunday fatally shot a Palestinian, believed to be a collaborator with Israel, as he stood before a court in Ramallah.
Palestinian sources told United Press International that a number of Palestinian masked gunmen stormed Ramallah's Palestinian National Authority courthouse and shot dead 35-year-old Youssef Shelbaya who was being prosecuted for collaborating with Israel. The sources said that the shooters immediately fled the scene.
The sources added that Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of Fatah Movement, later claimed responsibility for the killing of Shelbaya, who, according to the sources, had served for a long time as an undercover collaborator inside Israeli jails and detention camps.
Suspected Collaborator Executed in Public Square (20.5.03)
The Sydney Morning Herald
Palestinian militants have executed a young Palestinian in a public square in the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said, in a graphic warning to Palestinians against collaborating with Israeli intelligence.
Seven masked activists hauled Alla Daghlas, 22, to the main square in Nablus yesterday. His hands tied behind his back, he was forced to kneel, with two gunmen pointing guns at him. Then "they shot him together and went back into the Old City where they came from," said witness Ahmed Abu-Omar, 28.
An Al Aqsa spokesman said Daghlas was responsible for helping Israeli forces kill several leaders of the group in his village, Burka.
The spokesman, who would not give his name, said Daghlas had confessed. "We executed him in public to show our people the fate of any collaborator," the spokesman said.
Dozens of suspected collaborators with Israel have been killed by fellow Palestinians during 31 months of Palestinian-Israeli violence, but such public executions are rare.
After the killing, witnesses said some people in the crowd kicked the body before it was taken away by an ambulance. Then some children spat on the blood that was left on the ground, the witnesses said.
However, Abu-Omar and some others were uneasy with the scene. "I'm not sure the charges are true," he said. "It is not fair to kill a young man like that."
Death sentence on Palestinian who aided Israel (3.8.01)
By Inigo Gilmore,
The Telegraph
A distraught father of nine begged a Palestinian military court for mercy yesterday, moments before he was sentenced to death for helping Israel to assassinate a Hamas activist.
 Khaled al-Ukka, an alleged Israeli collaborator, stands before a Palestinian court |
The case is part of a campaign against collaborators under way in the courts and on the streets of the West Bank since Israel killed two senior political leaders of the Islamic militant group on Tuesday.
Two alleged collaborators were sentenced to death earlier this week. Two have been murdered in vigilante executions. Others have been dragged before the courts as hysteria sweeps through Palestinian towns.
In a leaflet distributed yesterday in Bethlehem, a militant group loosely affiliated to the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement said it was responsible for the vigilante killings.
"We say to the rest of the spies that their turn is coming soon with the bullets of justice," al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade said in the leaflet. "We will never forget the blood of the innocent martyrs that you sold for a cheap price."
Issah told the court he gave the Israelis information on the movements of Salah Darwazeh, who was killed on July 25 when his car was hit by Israeli missiles in the West Bank town of Nablus.
The 50-year-old labourer said he received a little more than œ30 every time he provided information on Darwazeh's travel route.
Palestinian security officials have held a number of people suspected of assisting Israel in the strike against Hamas in Nablus on Tuesday. The court in Nablus later heard another case of a Palestinian arrested by the general intelligence service and accused of collaborating with Israel.
A Left-wing Israeli MP, Mossi Raz, called on Mr Arafat to ensure that the death sentences were not carried out. Mr Raz said the death sentence was "barabaric" in any country, but that the swift nature of the trial in Nablus made it even worse.
Yesterday, Israel dismissed a call by Mr Arafat, made during a visit to Rome, for an end to 10 months of violence and for the despatch of international observers.
Daniel Ayalon, a foreign affairs adviser to the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said: "This is not the first time that Yasser Arafat has made this type of declaration.
"If Arafat wanted to stop the violence, he would not send terrorists. He would not permit the bombers to launch their suicide attacks. He would stop the incitement."
Death of Palestinian 'collaborator' by the Palestinian Authority (16.1.01)
BBC News
The body of a Palestinian man suspected of collaborating with Israel has been found on a main road outside the village of Ajja, near Nablus, in the West Bank.
According to reports, the dead man was suspected of collaborating during the first Palestinian uprising of 1988-1993. He had fled to Israel but returned to Ajja in 1994.
In recent days, there has been a spate of killings of alleged collaborators.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has offered an amnesty to people who have collaborated with Israel in return for a full confession.
But the militant Islamic group Hamas has threatened to take its own measures against alleged collaborators.
Recent executions
On Monday, one suspected collaborator was found dead on his doorstep in the West Bank village of Burqin.
Two Palestinians were formally executed separately in Nablus and Gaza City on Saturday by the PA after being found guilty of helping Israel to assassinate Palestinian activists.
The death sentences were carried out despite objections by Palestinian human rights activists, who said the accused were tried in a matter of hours, without lawyers, and with no right of appeal.
Two other Palestinians were sentenced to death for collaborating, while two received life sentences from a security court in Bethlehem.
Execution 'justified'
Faisal Husseini, the most senior Palestinian official in Jerusalem, said on Monday that the Palestinian security courts were right to pass death sentences on collaborators.
"When someone is assisting the Israelis with information that helps them kill one of our leaders without even giving him one minute to defend himself, it is difficult to criticise us for using military courts," Mr Husseini said.
But Mr Husseini also warned Palestinians not to take the law into their own hands.
"There is only one body that is responsible for taking this critical decision and carrying it out. Only one body," Mr Husseini stressed.
"Any attempt by an individual or group to do this will bring charges on to them."
But Hamas has announced that it intends to take such action.
"The Izz el-Din al-Qassam will not remain handcuffed and silent in the face of continued ugly crimes by the traitors," said a statement issued in the name of the group's military wing.
"It will strike with an iron fist against all those involved in collaboration with the Zionist enemy."
Amnesty offer
The PA has given collaborators 45 days to give themselves up and make a full disclosure of their links with Israel. The amnesty period runs from 13 January.
"We will have no problem pardoning whoever comes and makes a full confession, expressing repentance, and reveals all the information he knows honestly and accurately," Justice Minister Freih Abu Meddein said.
He also dismissed a European Union statement expressing "deep regret" at Saturday's execution of two Palestinians.
He said the EU should instead condemn what he called Israel's killing of innocent Palestinians.
According to the justice minister, the PA has sentenced 32 to death since its creation in 1994. Five of these sentences have been carried out the others have been commuted to life imprisonment.
Human rights groups have denounced the PA's security courts, which they say deny basic legal rights.
The firing squad kills the man. A Palestinian soldier ensures the man is dead by firing more from a close distance.
Palestinian Center for Human Rights Condemns Murder of Suspected Collaborator (15.7.02)
IDF's Spokesperson
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the murder of a Palestinian suspected of collaborating with Israel, which took place in a Palestinian courtroom.
During the trial of Abdal Sababi, an armed Palestinian entered the hall and shot the suspect dead. The Palestinian human rights organization condemned the incident and warned against adopting "the law of the jungle" over the laws of justice in the Palestinian Authority.
The following is the condemnation and article published by Reuters.
"Informal" killing of a collaborator with Israel
The pictures were taken by a french news agency's photographer (EMP).
Later, it was discovered that the man was murdered not only because helping
Israel, but the murderer had a quarrel with the man he killed. Moreover,
it was also discovered that there was some deal between the murderer and the
photographer, and they arranged to meet together at the crime scene, so the
french photographer actually help the man to commit the crime.
This is also the reason why the photographer had these "good" images.
(1) The murderer leads the man to the center of a Rafiah's neighboorhood.
(2) Then he shot him dead.
(3) Here he is standing on the man's body and waving his gun, proudly, in front of everyone.
Arafat's Guard Murdered Land Broker (11.5.1997)
Information Regarding Israel's Security (IRIS)
Associated Press reports that Israel has accused Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard unit of killing a Jerusalem Arab who was suspected of selling land to Jews.
Land dealer Farid Farid Bashiti was found dead Thursday in the Palestinian-ruled city of Ramallah north of Jerusalem. His skull was crushed, his hands were tied behind his back and his mouth was sealed with plastic tape.
His death came just days after PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein announced that Arabs caught selling land to Jews would face the death penalty. "The death penalty will be imposed on anyone who is convicted of selling one inch [of land] to Israel.... Even middle men involved in such deals will face the same penalty," said Medein.
"There is no doubt at all that Force 17 killed him," a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press. Force 17 is Arafat's personal bodyguard.
Bashiti, 70, was seen at the Force 17 headquarters in Ramallah at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, the official said. "At 2 a.m. the hospital in Ramallah phoned his wife and told her she could come and pick up his body."
Bashiti, said the official, was lured to a meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in eastern Jerusalem by a woman who said she had buyers for two houses in Ramallah he was trying to sell. Bashiti's family corroborated the account but denied he had sold property to Jews.
About 20 Jerusalem Arabs have been kidnapped by Palestinian Authority agents over the last two years and subjected to rough interrogations, often including physical torture. The Palestinian Preventive Security Service, headed by Col. Jibril Rajoub, has been responsible for the abductions.
The Israel-Palestinian accords bar the PA from any activity in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Ikrameh Sabri, the Mufti of Jerusalem, the city's highest-ranking Islamic clergyman, said on Saturday that he had issued a fatwa, a religious legal ruling, decreeing the death sentence against Muslims who sell land to Israelis.
In a sermon at the Al Aqsa mosque Friday, Sabri said Bashiti was an infidel who could not be buried at a Muslim cemetery. He also forbade Muslims to pray for Bashiti at the mosque.
The abduction and Murder of Palestinian Real Estate Agents (1.6.1996)
Likud Netherlands
In the past month, the Middle East has been witnessing a disturbing phenomenon: three Palestinian individuals were murdered in the Jerusalem and Ramallah areas, for what would, anywhere else in the world, be considered normal business activity - selling real estate. The three murders took place under similar circumstances, with two of the bodies having been found within 200 meters of one another. Shortly following these murders, the Israel Police managed to foil the attempted abduction of a fourth person, an incident which might have otherwise ended in an additional murder.
What these criminal acts have in common is the profession of their victims - all four men were involved in real estate transactions with Israelis. It should also be noted that two of the murder victims were Palestinians holding Israeli identity cards, as is the individual whose abduction was prevented.
Regretfully, these heinous abductions and murders were preceded and given justification by numerous public statements by high-ranking Palestinian Authority officials. These statements not only advocated restricting the sale of land to Israelis, but expressly prohibited it, spelling out the punishments to be inflicted for the violation of such a ban. In a number of cases, such land transactions were even declared by officials to be an act of treason, punishable by death.
This is an intolerable situation, especially when such statements are issued by the very people entrusted with maintaining law and order in the Palestinian Authority. Inciting remarks made by Palestinian officials provided clear moral legitimation for subsequent abductions and vicious assassinations. The situation, however, is even graver: Not only did the heads of the Palestinian Authority legitimize murder without trial and in flagrant violation of human rights and the rule of law. An attempt has also been made to assault the very fundamentals of the peace process - the efforts to foster trust and cooperation, and to create a basis for living together in mutual interaction.
Israel is appalled by these murders, and demands that the head of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat ensure that they are stopped. Israel expects a public and unequivocal denunciation of these acts by the Palestinian Authority.
These murders arouse the anger and indignation of all those who place high value on peace and human rights, and the phenomenon deserves to be condemned publicly as a dangerous and criminal threat to both.
Harm to Palestinians Suspected of Collaborating with Israel
The Israeli Information Center for Palestinian Human Rights (An anti-Israeli organization).
Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa intifada, Palestinians have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. Some of the victims were killed in assassinations conducted by organizations; others died at the hands of Palestinian Authority security forces as a result of being tortured or when attempting to escape, while other were lynched by crowds of people. Also, the Palestinian Authority killed several Palestinians whom the State Security Court, in a patently unfair judicial process, had convicted of collaborating with Israel.
This phenomenon is not new. During the first intifada, hundreds of Palestinians were killed by their fellow Palestinians for allegedly collaborating with Israel. The definition of "collaboration" was much broader then, and included, for example, directly assisting Israeli security forces by gathering information and trapping wanted persons, serving on Israel's behalf in political positions in local authorities, the Civil Administration, and the Israel Police Force, brokering and selling land to Israeli organizations, failing to participate in work strikes, marketing banned Israeli merchandise. Also, collaboration included actions defined as "immoral," even if not directly related to assisting the Israeli authorities. Prostitution and drug dealing came within this category. In the current intifada, individuals who maintain contacts with Israel's security services are deemed collaborators.
In many cases, the attacks against suspected collaborators were particularly brutal. Some suspects were abducted, tortured, killed and then had their bodies mutilated and placed on public display.
These acts against collaborators, particularly the killing of suspects, are patently illegal and immoral. They constitute grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions, and the International Criminal Court Statute defines these acts as war crimes. Every state, organization and individual, even those that are not formal parties to these international agreements, are subject to its rules and principles.
International law also provides that a person may be punished only after being charged and convicted of a recognized criminal offense. In addition, defendants are entitled to due process and the opportunity to properly defend themselves.
Israeli security forces pressure Palestinians to collaborate. A usual method entails the security forces requiring Palestinians to collaborate as a condition to receiving the permits necessary to earn a livelihood, obtain medical treatment, and the like, in exchange for information. It is also common practice for Israel to pay for information, a practice that takes advantage of the poverty that prevails in the Occupied Territories. In some cases, security forces use collaborators to perform or assist in the commission of acts that are illegal under international law, such as assassinating suspected terrorists or torturing detainees.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the occupying state to recruit collaborators from the local population by means of threat, extortion, or condition for granting a specific service.
B'Tselem urges the Palestinian Authority to ensure the safety and well-being of suspected collaborators with Israel, and to protect them from being abducted by unauthorized individuals and groups. In particular, the PA must immediately cease the use of torture of persons suspected of collaboration. Of course, the PA has the right to arrest and try a person suspected of having perpetrated a crime, but it must do so in accordance with due process. The proceeding must be held in the civil courts and not the State Security Court. B'Tselem further urges the PA to investigate the cases in which suspected collaborators were killed and to prosecute the persons involved in the killing.
B'Tselem urges the Israeli government to cease placing forbidden pressure on Palestinians to get them to collaborate with its security forces, and to refrain from using Palestinians to make arrests that are prohibited by international law.
More Pictures
In the heart of Ramallah:
In Bethlehem:In Gaza:
| Link & Sources: |
 The Telegraph. Likud Netherlands. Information Regarding Israel's Security (IRIS). The Washington Times. The Sydney Morning Herald. |
