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

b. Rehabilitation in Israel

During the Intifada a few hundred collaborators and their families received day-permits or residency permits for Israel. Most of them live in mixed Jewish Arab cities: Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth, Ramleh, Lod, and Beersheba. Others moved to villages in Galilee and the Triangle. Some of the rehabilitated individuals living in Israel have already received Israeli ID cards, while others have been told that their cases are still being examined.⁷⁴ Living at the edge of Tel Aviv Jaffa, for example, are a few dozen families that B'Tselem interviewed for this report. Other families are living, at the expense of the authorities, in cheap hotels in the central region as a temporary expedient. Dozens of families moved into empty apartments they received from the defense establishment but which were not registered in their names.

Collaborators who have moved to Israel have harsh things to say about their treatment at the hands of the authorities. 'A.H., a collaborator living in south Tel Aviv, told B'Tselem on December 27, 1993:
Ahmad Burini, a collaborator from the Balata refugee camp, lived with his wife and their three children in an apartment next to mine in the same building in Tel Aviv, to where we were transferred in 1988. In 1990 Burini was killed in a road accident and his wife remained alone with the children in the flat. One day I got a phone call from the GSS coordinator, who said: “Do me a favor, go to the next door apartment and give Burini's wife 50 shekels so she can take a taxi and return to the village [in the West Bank] with her children.” I said: “I understand that this is the price for the people who worked for you for so many years. Thank you very much,” and I hung up. In the end she went back to the village with the children. All the help she got from the state added up to the cost of a one way trip from Tel Aviv to the territories.
'A.H., born in 1956, has been an open, armed collaborator since 1974 in the Tulkarm area (see below). What follows is based on testimony he gave B'Tselem on August 4, 1993.
In 1988 'A.H. was kidnapped by Fatah activists, who took him to a cave in the hills and subjected him to a violent interrogation. His house was looted and torched, causing him, he estimates, hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, for which he has received no compensation. After his house was burned down, he moved to Israel by permit. According to the estimate of an assessor (whose report 'A.H. showed B'Tselem) the direct damage to the house was about 150,000 shekels. 'A.H. said he asked the authorities to compensate him for the loss of his house and the contents, but received nothing. Since the end of 1988, within the framework of his rehabilitation, 'A.H. has lived in south Tel Aviv and carries an Israeli ID card. The GSS, he says, still calls him for various operations in the territories:

I have a lot of complaints about the way the authorities treated me. On the one hand, the GSS treated me okay. Like hundreds of other collaborators who were exposed and then rehabilitated in Israel   in Arab communities in Jaffa, Ramleh, Taibeh, Umm al Fahm, Haifa, and Galilee   I also received an apartment, in Tel Aviv. The apartment belongs to Amidar [a government housing company] and is not registered in my name. Some of the collaborators here receive a regular monthly salary. I do not get a regular salary, but [was given] one time assistance. I was given a certain sum to start, but it was very little compared with my needs and my contribution. I received money to buy a taxi, but after about two years I had to sell it because the fees for the taxi registration were tremendous. The renovation of the apartment, which was in very bad shape, cost me 60,000 shekels, and I paid for it out of my pocket. Today I have debts of tens of thousands of shekels, from the renovation. I couldn't live in it the way it was before. Look at the condition of the neighboring apartments of collaborators who were brought here and you will understand. [B'Tselem visited one of the neighboring apartments and found it in general disrepair as a result of years long neglect.]

I arranged a monthly National Insurance Institute allocation for army veterans without any help from the GSS. The GSS never once agreed to assist me as I requested. They were always ready to give less and not everything at once. During the negotiations with them I wrote letters to a number of personalities, including Shaikeh Erez [former Civil Administration head in the West Bank], the chief of the GSS, and the defense minister, asking for the required help. When my operators from the GSS heard about it, they demanded that I not send the letters and promised me 30,000 shekels on that occasion. All I am asking is that they cover my debt. I worked twenty years for the GSS. Because of that I have to die of starvation? My children went through the whole winter with torn shoes. All you'll find in the refrigerator is sour cream. The dogs in Tel Aviv have a barber shop. My children haven't been to the barber for half a year. When I call the GSS they tell me: Don't worry, things will work out. But the help is never enough. I am sure they are doing everything so that I will remain dependent on them.

The thing that hurts me and other sayanim like me is that we see what Israel is offering the terrorists and the members of [those] organizations. The GSS is making very tempting offers to senior Intifada activists - for example, to open businesses and help underwrite projects they will direct. But us, their associates, they forget. I swear to you that there were days in the winter when my children lay in bed and cried because there was nothing to eat in the house.

In November 1993, following the intercession of B'Tselem and others, the Defense Ministry helped 'A.H. pay his debts. In a conversation with B'Tselem on November 12, 1993, 'A.H. said he had received the assistance after threatening to go on a sit down strike at the Knesset. The Defense Ministry, he says, gave him a one time payment of 30,000 shekels and promised him a monthly salary of 1,500 shekels for an indeterminate period. In return he had to sign a waiver for any additional claims. Nothing was promised regarding compensation for his lost house and land in the village.