PA plans to weed out 'collaborators'

Palestinians believe Israel is increasingly relying on Palestinian informers.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
gaza air strike 298 (photo credit: AP [file])
gaza air strike 298
(photo credit: AP [file])
The Palestinian Authority security forces have been instructed to resume their campaign against Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel, PA officials disclosed on Monday. The officials said the order comes in the wake of Israel's ongoing policy of targeted assassinations against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah members, especially in the Gaza Strip.
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The Palestinians believe that Israel is increasingly relying on Palestinian informers in tracking down and killing the wanted activists. "We have decided to wage a war on the traitors who are helping Israel kill our activists," said a Fatah legislator. The PA already has about 100 suspected "collaborators" in its prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including six who are on death row. Fatah and Hamas legislators have been urging the PA leadership over the past few weeks to crack down on Palestinians suspected of tipping the Israeli security forces about the whereabouts and movements of wanted activists. At a closed meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council's Security Affairs Committee earlier this week, the Fatah and Hamas legislators put aside their differences when the issue of the "collaborators' file" was raised. The committee is headed by former Fatah security commander and minister Muhammed Dahlan, who himself has been repeatedly accused by his rivals of collaborating with Israel and the US. The parliamentary committee, whose job is to oversee the work of the various branches of the PA security forces, decided that the time has come to launch a massive crackdown on "collaborators." The members of the committee also decided to issue instructions to the judiciary system to pass death sentences against those found guilty of working for the Israeli security services. "We have decided that we need a comprehensive plan to deal with the phenomenon of collaborators," one of the Fatah legislators told The Jerusalem Post, noting that Dahlan fully supported the calls for cracking down on suspected "collaborators." Two of the committee members, Mahmoud Musleh and Ashraf Juma'ah, presented a working paper to their colleagues in which they explained that the failure of the PA security forces and the courts to take tough measures against "collaborators" was one of the reasons behind the growing anarchy in PA-ruled areas. At least seven Palestinians have been killed in the past two months in the West Bank after being accused of collaboration with Israel. All of the killings were carried out by Fatah militiamen belonging to the group's armed wing, Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The victims, who were executed in public squares, included two women from Nablus aged 28 and 50. In an unrelated development, three senior Hamas members who were arrested by the IDF in Ramallah during Operation Defensive Shield, have demanded an investigation into the circumstances of their arrest. The three - Bilal Barghouti, Salim Hijeh and Ahmed Abu Taha - were arrested in 2002 together with scores of Hamas prisoners who were inside the headquarters of the Preventative Security Service in the town of Betunia near Ramallah. The three have since been sentenced to several life terms for their responsibility for a series of suicide bombings inside Israel. In a letter to PA Minster for Prisoners Affairs Wasfi Kabaha, the prisoners hinted that the IDF raid on the headquarters of the Preventative Security Service was carried out in coordination with top PA security commanders. "We are demanding a serious investigation by the Palestinian Legislative Council into the circumstances surrounding our kidnapping from the Palestinian security facility," the three Hamas men wrote to the minister. "We want the council to determine who was responsible for our kidnapping and to bring them to trial." Jibril Rajoub, who was commander of the Preventative Security Service in the West Bank at the time, has strongly denied allegations that he had helped Israel capture the Hamas fugitives. Kabaha said he was planning to bring the prisoners' letter to the attention of the PLC in the coming days so that the legislators could discuss the issue.