Violence among the Palestinians

Humanist, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Erika Waak

In the Human Rights Watch report, the number of Palestinian collaborators killed was lower when compared to the first intifada. But the exact numbers of collaborators are impossible to determine since collaboration isn't a phenomenon willingly acknowledged by most of its perpetrators; the number is probably higher than what is recorded. Sissons said:

   Since the [2001] report in November, I think that in April and May thirteen
   collaborators were killed. In the last two months the number of
   Pales-tinian collaborators that were killed is higher than in the last
   thirteen months and its getting worse.

The dynamics are that the Palestinians have to blame someone for the violence. As a result, some collaborators move to Israel for better treatment and become part of the Israeli society, although they are despised by both the Israeli and PA sides.

   Israeli security forces use collaborators to capture and arrest the wanted
   Pales-tinian at their home. There may be three Israelis, the fourth person
   is the Palestinian collaborator and is usually wearing black clothes and a
   black hood--it's very graphical. The collaborator goes to the home of the
   wanted Palestinian and identifies the people in the houses, and the wanted
   Palestinian is captured.

Arrests and Investigations

The various Palestinian security forces have so much independence that suspects are in practice deprived of judicial supervision of their detention. Arrests are made at the discretion of the security forces without an arrest warrant from the attorney general, no proper investigation is conducted beforehand, and the security forces rely on the interrogation of the suspect to corroborate the charges. The Human Rights Watch report says:

   In practice no arrest warrant is usually issued before the arrest, although
   the Attorney General's office has this responsibility. Some judges ...
   collaborate with the security services and sign arrest warrants after the
   fact without investigating the charges or interrogating the prisoners.
   Judges [sign] blank warrants that the security services then use at their
   discretion. The result is that collaborators are not officially charged and
   are, therefore, kept outside the law.

Since both investigation and interrogation are carried out by the security services, and interrogation is often used as a substitute for a proper investigation, suspects are exposed to mistreatment. Torture also appears to be widely used during this interrogation phase.

   The various security forces of the Palestinian Authority carried out
   arbitrary arrests of alleged Palestinian collaborators with Israel. Many
   were held in prolonged detention without trial and tortured; others were
   sentenced to death after unfair trials and two were executed. Both Israeli
   and Palestinian authorities failed to take the necessary steps to stop the
   security forces ... from committing abuses.

As of September 2001 the PA was holding about 450 people in detention without charge or trial. Most of these were suspected of being informants for Israeli security forces and others were alleged to have sold Palestinian land to Israelis.