Fatah gunmen kill alleged collaborator

Victim supposedly helped the Shin Bet foil a suicide attack inside Israel.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
al aksa man gun 298.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
al aksa man gun 298.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
A Palestinian man who allegedly foiled a suicide attack inside Israel was killed in Ramallah on Monday by gunmen belonging to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party. "The collaborator was executed after he confessed that he had been recruited by the Israeli authorities on December 17, 2002," said a statement issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's armed wing. The group claimed that the victim, from the village of Burkeen near Jenin, was responsible for the assassination by the IDF of two Hamas members in the Jenin area in 2002. The two were identified as Shaman Subuh and Mustapha Qash. The group did not say when the 'collaborator" was captured or how he was "executed." But it claimed that the man had been instructed by his Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) handlers to establish a cell belonging to Izzadin Kassam, Hamas's armed wing, in the Jenin area. All the members of the cell were later arrested or killed by the IDF. One of them was arrested on May 3, 2003, on suspicion that he was about to carry out a suicide attack inside Israel. According to the Fatah gunmen, the "collaborator" recently moved to Ramallah, where he was entrusted with following the movements of Fatah and Islamic Jihad fugitives. In an unrelated development, former PA prosecutor-general Khaled al-Kidra was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Monday. No group claimed responsibility for the abduction. Kidra served under Yasser Arafat and was responsible for the execution of a number of suspected collaborators. Last month a Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip, who allegedly passed on information to the Israeli security forces about Palestinian terrorist groups responsible for Kassam rocket attacks on Israel, was arrested by PA security forces loyal to Abbas. The 33-year-old suspect is a resident of the Nuseirat refugee camp, a PA security source said. He was arrested by members of the Preventive Security Service, which is responsible, among other things, for combating espionage. The man, who has been accused of "collaboration" with the Shin Bet, has confessed and will be brought to trial soon on charges of "high treason," the source said. If convicted, he will face the death penalty. Sources in the Preventive Security Service said the suspected "collaborator" had worked in Israel for many years, and had established contacts with criminal elements. During his interrogation, the sources said, the man confessed that he had been recruited by the Shin Bet in June 2006 in return for money and a cellphone. His main mission was to report on the movement and whereabouts of Palestinian gunmen who were firing Kassam rockets at Israel, they said. Meanwhile, PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Monday that several issues remained unresolved in the newly brokered Palestinian national unity government agreement. In an address on Palestinian television, he said, "When President Abu Mazen [Abbas] comes to Gaza, we will continue the negotiations on issues that remain." Haniyeh also appealed to the international community to accept the agreement and to lift economic sanctions on the PA, singling out the US, which has responded cautiously to the deal. "The American people must review its position... to come into line with the Palestinian will," he said. "It must respect the framework of Palestinian democracy."