Eight Israelis were injured, two of them seriously and six moderately to lightly, in a shooting attack Monday afternoon in the Ramallah area. Three Palestinians were reported to be seriously injured after two buildings in the heart of Ramallah came under heavy fire from Israeli soldiers.
Earlier, two masked Palestinian gunmen entered an intelligence building in Tulkarem on Monday and killed eight men suspected of collaborating with Israel, security sources and witnesses said.
The security sources said Palestinian intelligence officers guarding the building had left their posts when Israeli tanks moved towards the town because they believed the army was poised to enter. Their departure allowed the two gunmen to enter the building and shoot the men dead, the sources said.
Their bodies were dragged out to the road where hundreds of Palestinian onlookers gathered.
Earlier Monday, the bodies of three Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel were found in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said. Two were killed after they had been jailed for more than a year.
The last month has seen a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinians killed for being suspected collaborators. Ten suspected collaborators were killed in March, compared with about 24 since the fighting with Israel began 18 months ago.
In Qalqilyah Monday, the bodies of Iyad Abu Ishab, 20, and Walid Radwan, 22, were found riddled with bullets in a side street of the West Bank town.
According to foreign news agencies, Palestinians security sources said the two men, who had been arrested and charged for collaborating more than a year ago, were killed by their prison guards. It was not immediately known whether the men were killed in jail and whether their bodies were dumped in the street.
The body of the third suspected collaborator, Mahmood Rahamie, 21, was found in Bethlehem. In a statement to Palestinian security forces, the Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said Rahamie had been killed after he was caught sending information to the Israelis through the Internet and e-mail.
About two weeks ago, attempts to hang the body of a Palestinian man accused of collaborating with the Israelis from a rooftop overlooking the square in Bethlehem were stopped by police. The incident followed the first public display of the corpse of an accused collaborator, whose body was strung up from a monument in the center of Ramallah a few days earlier. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
