Palestine: Information on Palestinians collaborating or suspected of collaborating with Israelis; treatment of suspected collaborators by Palestinian militant groups in the Occupied Territories
| Publisher | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada |
| Author | Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada |
| Publication Date | 26 April 2004 |
| Citation / Document Symbol | PAL42588.E |
| Reference | 5 |
| Cite as | Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Palestine: Information on Palestinians collaborating or suspected of collaborating with Israelis; treatment of suspected collaborators by Palestinian militant groups in the Occupied Territories, 26 April 2004, PAL42588.E, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/41501c4b2d.html [accessed 31 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Definitions of Collaboration:
According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2003 there were three significant kinds of "collaborators" in the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (HRW Nov. 2001 sect. 6): "informants" who gave Israeli security forces information about the activities of Palestinian militants; "infiltrators" who penetrated Palestinian organizations, and "land dealers" who assisted Israelis in purchasing Palestinian-owned land (Nov. 2001 sec. 6). Other informants ("intermediaries" who helped Palestinians with paperwork and security checks; "armed collaborators" who helped the Israeli Special Forces locate the houses of Palestinian militants, "economic collaborators" who represented Israeli companies and promoted Israeli products; and "political collaborators" who represented Israeli interests, occasionally assuming a public role) were more active before 1994 but may still have been active as of 2003 (HRW Nov. 2001 Sec. 6). According to Human Rights Watch, a Palestinian suspected of belonging to any of the above-mentioned categories carries the risk of being assassinated or arrested (ibid.).
Overall Situation of Suspected Collaborators:
According to The Guardian, Palestinian authorities often have "well-founded suspicions" about the overall level of penetration of the Israeli intelligence services in the Occupied Territories (The Guardian 2 Apr. 2002).
Several sources have reported that since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, dozens of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel have been executed, sometimes publicly, with the aim of deterring future collaborators (B'Tselem n.d.a; ibid. b; BBC 19 July 2003; The Guardian 2 Apr. 2002; Country Reports 2003 25 Feb. 2004). According to the Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories B'Tselem, a total of 86 Palestinians have been killed by other Palestinians for alleged collaboration with Israel since the autumn of 2000, 18 of whom were being held by Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces (n.d.a). Killings included assassinations by militant organizations, lynching by crowds of people, and death at the hands of the PA security forces by executions, during torture (B'Tselem n.d.b; HRW Nov. 2001 sec. 6) or when attempting to escape (B'Tselem n.d.b). Suspects also suffered from abduction and "torture" at the hands of other Palestinians (ibid.). B'Tselem claims that the treatment of collaboration suspects, especially when such treatment includes killing, contravenes the Four Geneva Conventions as well as the International Criminal Court Statute (n.d.b).
Besides the retribution suffered at the hands of the PA and various militant groups, suspected terrorists also risk banishment from their families, as was the case of Hanna Mansour Salama, convicted in January 2001 of cooperation with Israeli security and immediately disowned by his family (HRW Nov. 2001 sec. 6).
Reasons for Collaboration with Israelis:
Although the Israeli government does not officially sanction the practice of forcing Palestinian civilians to assist in its military activities, Palestinians have been known to be placed in situations where it was very difficult to avoid assisting the Israeli army when it asked for their assistance, for fear of being punished for refusing (Country Reports 2003 25 Feb. 2004, intr.). However, Palestinians placed in such situations would subsequently have to face the risk of being accused of collaboration with Israel, and all the implications that such a charge could entail (ibid.).
Some Palestinians may collaborate with Israeli intelligence arefor financial gain (often for amounts of "no more than a few hundred dollars") (The Guardian 2 Apr. 2003); because they are being blackmailed after being arrested by the Israelis (ibid); or because of their opposition to certain militant group members (ibid). B'Tselem maintains that some members of the security forces ask Palestinians to collaborate with them in exchange for permits allowing them to work or access medical treatment inside Israel (n.d.b).
Treatment by the Palestinian Authority
On 15 March 2004, the PA announced that it had arrested at least140 Palestinians suspected of collaboration (Jerusalem Post 15 Mar. 2004) since the beginning of the Intifada in September 2000 (BBC 19 Jul. 2003). The PA's Preventative Security Service (PSS) conducted most of the arrests (ibid.). Of the eleven men who were brought to trial for high treason, ten had already been sentenced to death (ibid.). According to Palestinian officials, the PA will resume the practice of executions of alleged collaborators in an effort to decrease the apparent lawlessness that pervades much of the Gaza Strip (ibid.).
In a November 2001 report on the Palestinian justice system, Human Rights Watch published the following information: Since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000, the PA has been involved in "serious abuses" against suspected collaborators, including the torture of some suspects in order to force confessions, and the televising of confessions (HRW Nov. 2001 sec. 6). Most of those convicted of the crime are sentenced to death (ibid.). During a 45-day amnesty beginning in January 2001, the PA offered to pardon collaborators who turned themselves in and gave a full public confession; however, few people participated in this "amnesty" (ibid.).
According to Country Reports 2003, several Human Rights organizations reported that suspected collaborators with Israel suffered poorer than average treatment in PA prisons (25 Feb. 2004, sec. 1c). The PA Military Intelligence Service arrested two men in Gaza in 2001 and 2002 on charges of collaborating with Israel (Country Reports 2003 25 Feb. 2004, sec. 1d). Despite a PA High Court of Justice ruling on 17 May 2003 that called for the release of the men due to lack of evidence, by the end of 2003 both were still incarcerated (ibid.). Country Reports 2003 goes on to state that untold numbers of suspected Israeli collaborators in PA prisons were often held without adequate evidence, problem exacerbated by the fact that many were prevented from contacting their lawyers, their families or their doctors (25 Feb. 2004, sec. 1.d).
Under PA law, Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel may be executed (Toronto Star 29 Feb. 2004; The Guardian 2 Apr. 2002). On 13 January 2001, a suspected collaborator was executed by the PA in front of a crowd of hundreds of people in the courtyard of the main administration building in Nablus (HRW Nov. 2001 sec. 11).
Treatment by Palestinian Militant Groups :
Human Rights Watch has reported that, occasionally, suspected collaborators are forced by Palestinian militant groups to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in order to prove their loyalty to Palestine (2004).
A member of the PSS was kidnapped by six Hamas members, beaten and tortured for suspected collaboration with Israel (BBC International Reports 21 Sep. 2003). The PSS subsequently arrested seven Hamas members (ibid.). In an article published by Agence France Presse (AFP), one Palestinian who was frustrated by the actions taken by Hamas against Israel said that he could not voice his concerns to Hamas for fear of being labelled a collaborator and then executed (30 June 2003).
During the first Intifada, which lasted from 1987 to 1993, it is reported that Palestinians killed more than 800 fellow Palestinians over suspected collaboration with Israel (The Guardian 2 Apr. 2002; HRW Nov. 2001 sec. 11). Street killings involving fewer people have occurred during the Intifada which began in September 2000 (ibid.).
In 2003 alone, Palestinian gunmen, usually unidentified, killed at least eight other Palestinians whom they suspected of collaboration with Israel (Country Reports 2003 25 Feb. 2004, sec. 1a). Some of those responsible for the killings were known to belong to militant groups, but none was arrested (ibid.). The PA has yet to bring those responsible for such killings to justice (HRW 2004).
On 3 April 2003, the Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour reported the killing of a man in Ramallah by two masked gunmen, apparently because he was suspected of being a collaborator. On 7 August 2003, AFP reported that three members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade executed a man in downtown Ramallah. August also saw the killing of a woman suspected of collaboration by militants, the first time a woman had been executed for such an accusation (BBC 19 July 2003). In October, two Palestinians were shot to death for suspected collaboration and their bodies subsequently exposed in a public place in Tulkarem, in the West Bank (The Canadian Press 23 Oct. 2003).
According to The Guardian on 1 April 2002, nearly one dozen prisoners being held by the PA on suspicion of collaborating with Israel were shot as Israeli forces were set to enter the West Bank (2 Apr. 2002). None of the executed had been tried for their alleged crimes (The Guardian 2 Apr. 2002). The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade dragged one man through the streets of Bethlehem before shooting him to death in a parking lot beside Manger Square (ibid.). Seven of the men killed that day were being held by the Palestinian intelligence service in a Tulkarem apartment (ibid.). When members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade entered the apartment to remove the men to the street where they were later shot, they encountered no opposition on the part of the police or guards (ibid.). A few weeks before the events of 1 April 2002, the deadliest attack on alleged collaborators since the beginning of the second Intifada, the body of a suspected collaborator was left hanging by the ankles in a traffic circle in downtown Ramallah, as a deterrent to future collaborators (ibid.).
Government officials have also occasionally been branded as collaborators (BBC 19 July 2003; The Independent 26 Nov. 2003). On 19 July 2003, several members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade kidnapped the governor of Jenin on charges of alleged collaboration with Israel (BBC 19 July 2003). The militants held the governor captive for several hours before releasing him on orders of Yasser Arafat (ibid.).Unknown militants fired bullets at the car of Nablus mayor Ghassan Shaka in November 2003, killing the mayor's brother, and left leaflets that accused Shaka of collaborating with Israel (The Independent 26 Nov. 2003).
There have been cases of accusations of collaboration being used as justification for murder following family or personal disputes (HRW Nov. 2001). However, according to the governor of the Nablus region of the West Bank, Mahmoud Aloul, PA police are sometimes remiss in imprisoning suspected Palestinian criminals in the territories for fear of being accused themselves of collaboration with Israel (IHT 19 July 2003).
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
References
Agence France Presse (AFP). 7 August 2003. Chris Otton. "Israel Tears Down Roadblocks in Bid to Restore Confidence in Peace Process." (Dialog)
_____. 30 June 2003. Sophie Claudet. "À Beit Hanoun, le soulagement après le retrait des forces israéliennes." (Courrier AFP)
BBC. 19 July 2003. "Militants Beat Up Jenin Governor." BBC International Reports. 21 September 2003. "Palestinian Security Agent Says Hamas Men Tortured Him - Israeli Paper." (Dialog)
B'Tselem. n.d.a. "Fatalities in the Al-Aqsa Intifada: 29 Sept. 2000 - 10 March 2004." _____. n.d.b. "Harm to Palestinians Suspected of Collaborating with Israel." The Canadian Press [Montréal]. 23 October 2003. "Deux collaborateurs présumés d'Israël exécutés à Tulkarem, l'armée enquête sur le raid de Nousseirat." (Dialog)
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003. 25 February 2004. United States Department of State. Washington, DC. The Guardian [London]. 2 April 2002. Peter Beaumont. "Palestinians Kill Suspected Collaborators." Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2004. Human Rights Watch World Report 2003. _____. November 2001. "Justice Undermined: Balancing Security and Human Rights in the Palestinian Justice System." The Independent [London]. 26 November 2003. "West Bank: Assassination Attempt on West Bank Mayor." (Dialog)
The International Herald Tribune (IHT) [London]. 19 July 2003. James Bennet. "Street Violence Tears Palestinian Fabric." (Dialog)
The Jerusalem Post. 15 March 2004. Khaled Abu Toameh. "More than 140 Collaborators Arrested by PA." (Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA/Kokhaviv) L'Orient-Le Jour [Beirut]. 3 April 2003. "Territoires occupés - Des milliers d'habitants délogés de leurs habitations avant d'être contrôlés".
The Toronto Star. 29 February 2004. "In Gaza, the Tunnels Lead to Death." (Dialog)
Additional Sources Consulted
Internet Sites, including: Al-Ahram, Al-Jazeera, Amnesty International (AI), European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI), Ha'aretz, Jordan Times, Middle East Times, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People (PCR), Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), Palestine News Agency-Wafa, Palestine Times, United Kingdom (UK) Home Office Country Information, World News Connection (WNC)
