B'Tselem Report Collaborators in the Occupied Territories: Human Rights Abuses and Violations, Comprehensive Report, January 1994

a. Protection and Rehabilitation in the Territories

According to the IDF Spokesperson, from the beginning of the Intifada until the end of November 1993, 942 Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians as suspected collaborators. The Defense Ministry reports that 35 40 percent of these had ties with an Israeli governmental body.⁶⁸ It is clear from the data, then, that in many cases the authorities were incapable of protecting collaborators. The failures took the form of unwillingness to come to the help of collaborators who were under attack, or delays in proffering assistance. In some cases the explanation given for the failure to help was difficulties of accessing the site of the incident, or fear of involving the army in a confrontation with local residents. These arguments are insufficient. Just as it is not reasonable for the IDF to abandon an Israeli citizen in the territories whose life is in danger, citing objective difficulties, so one cannot accept the authorities' explanation that the IDF could not reach and extricate a collaborator because of difficulties of various kinds.

During the six years of the Intifada, there have been at least ten lynchings in the territories, in which a mob attacked a suspected collaborator, generally after placing his house under a prolonged siege.⁶⁹ The following examples describe cases of lynch against armed collaborators who were left unprotected by the authorities.
On February 24, 1988, Muhammad 'Ayid Zakarnah, an open, armed collaborator, was killed in the town of Qabatia. His house was attacked for more than four hours by thousands of local residents. The security forces did not come to his aid, even though they knew his life was in danger. Only after he was killed and his body strung up on an electricity pole did the security forces enter the town and make arrests.⁷⁰ It could be argued, perhaps, that this was the first time a collaborator was killed, and the security forces were unprepared, but it was not the last incident of its kind.
Ashraf Gharbali, age 25, was killed in August 1990 by residents of the Shabura refugee camp in Rafah. A.B. (full name in B'Tselem's files), a neighbor of the Gharbali family, told B'Tselem on August 20, 1993, that at the start of the Intifada Gharbali, a collaborator armed with a pistol, had moved to Dahaniyeh, a protected camp for collaborators in the southern Gaza Strip (see below).
According to A.B., Gharbali had been an undercover agent and recruiter of other collaborators before the Intifada. During the Intifada he was detained by the security forces and then planted as an undercover agent (asfor) in detention facilities in order to extract confessions from prisoners. He was also suspected of threatening families of wanted individuals, such as the family of Yasser Zanun (from the Black Panther cell in Rafah) and of writing slogans and distributing forged leaflets.
On August 25, 1990, Ashraf, taking advantage of the fact that most of the camp residents were at prayers, came from Dahaniyeh to visit his family. However, his house was under surveillance by an activist of the Rafiq a Salamah cell, which took up positions around the house shortly after Ashraf's arrival. They demanded that he surrender his pistol, but he responded by opening fire. His father tried to make him stop by standing in his way, and took a bullet in the shoulder.
One of the cell members threw a grenade, but it failed to explode. By now, hundreds of worshippers had left the mosque and were streaming toward the site of the incident. Gharbali kept firing his pistol in an effort to protect himself, but finally he ran out of ammunition. The mob then stormed the house. Gharbali fled to the roof but tripped and fell into a neighbor's house, where the mob began to kick him and attack him with stones and sticks. According to the testimony, the neighbor tried to intervene, fearing that he would get into trouble with the authorities, but Gharbali was beaten to death. His body was so battered that it was almost unrecognizable. His family retrieved the body and took it back to their house, followed by large numbers of onlookers. The crowd wanted to hang the body from an electricity pole, but large army forces arrived and imposed a seven day curfew on the Rafah area. During the week of the curfew the army interrogated most of the inhabitants of the Shaburah refugee camp, especially those age 16 40, and made about 130 arrests. The GSS was unable to determine with certainty who had actually taken part in the murder, nor could its agents locate the pistol. After the curfew was lifted, the Rafiq a Salamah cell issued a statement claiming responsibility for the killing.
The army in the Rafah area learned about the attack on the collaborator's home while it was still in progress. At 2:15 p.m. Ashraf's brother arrived at Military Government headquarters in Rafah and informed the army about the attack by masked individuals. He said that Ashraf was hiding in a lavatory behind an iron door and could still be rescued. This information was transmitted to the sector commander by telephone, but the army did nothing until 4:15 p.m., when news of Ashraf's death arrived. After the matter was raised in the Knesset, an examining officer was appointed. He found that there had been a failure in the relay of information to the army unit closest to the site of the incident.⁷¹
An important element in the rehabilitation of collaborators whose identity has been exposed is their transfer to a new place of residence where they and their families face less danger. During the Intifada hundreds of collaborators and their families were moved to Israel. Hundreds of others found a haven in two villages in the territories: Fahmah in the northern West Bank, and Dahaniyeh in the southern Gaza Strip.

Fahmah

In the early 1970s Israel began an operation [which ultimately broke down] to move thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Fahmah, an abandoned Jordanian Army camp in the northern West Bank. Nearly all those who were resettled at Fahmah were either evacuees from Gaza Strip refugee camps or collaborators   both open and exposed   from the Gaza Strip. By the end of 1993 there were several dozen collaborators and their families living at Fahmah, in addition to a few families from the 1970s' evacuees.⁷²

In December 1993, B'Tselem visited the Fahmah camp. In earlier talks with B'Tselem (May 15, 1992; August 12, 1993) the mukhtar, Ahmad Hamarshah, had described the conditions in the camp:
More consideration should be shown for the residents here than in the other villages, because they devoted their lives to the state. Most of the houses we left were burned down. Anyone who left land, olives, or property - everything went. I received a house here from the state, part of an abandoned property. So far I have received 20,000 shekels to renovate the house, but they have promised more. I have a monthly salary from the GSS. I do not work anywhere else.
There are people here who have stopped being active collaborators because they are far from their sector or because of fear and the desire to protect their families. Everyone who deserved it received money to renovate, but not everyone received the same thing. It goes according to the size of the family. I have a large family, three children and a mother. Some have only a wife and two children, so they don't need a big house. Whoever can make do with 5,000 shekels gets that amount. The amount is determined also according to the collaborator's contribution.