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Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (file)
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| By Associated Press May 31, 2006 |
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Masked militants on Tuesday publicly executed a Palestinian man and woman they suspected of having spied for Israel, witnesses and gunmen said.
The man was shot dead in the main street of a refugee camp, with a large crowd looking on. The woman was later shot to death by her relatives and militants in the courtyard of the West Bank's largest hospital.
In more than five years of fighting with Israel, dozens of Palestinians suspecting of collaborating with Israel have been killed by Palestinian militants. Such killings, sometimes carried out in public, are rarely condemned by Palestinians, in part because collaborators often tell Israeli forces where to find fugitives marked for death by Israel.
In the latest case, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, accused Jafal Abu Tzrur, 24, of having told Israel where to find three of its members. The three were killed by Israeli forces during an Israeli raid on the Balata refugee camp near Nablus earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Al Aqsa gunmen interrogated Abu Tzrur, claimed he confessed and then dragged him into Balata's main street. As a large crowd looked on, the gunmen threw Abu Tzrur to the ground, witnesses said. When he tried to get up, the gunmen killed him with several shots, the witnesses said.
Al Aqsa said it also killed Odad Abu Mustafa, 27, a Nablus woman. Abu Mustafa was married to one of the Al Aqsa men slain by Israel, and was having an affair with Abu Tzrur, the gunmen said.
Abu Mustafa, a mother of four, was shot by gunmen and male relatives on grounds that she shamed her clan. More than 15 people took part in the execution, witnesses said. It took place in the courtyard of Raffidiyeh Hospital, the West Bank's largest.
The mob originally planned to kill her in the street but were swayed by a man who pleaded with them not to carry out the killing where little children could see. She was then taken into the courtyard of the hospital, said Yousef Mahmoud, 18, who witnessed the killing.
"One of the gunmen said 'where is her brother?' and when he stepped forward they said to him 'you know what you need to do,"' he said. "The brother took out a gun and shot her in the head with one bullet."
Mahmoud said the brother then emptied the entire clip into the body of his sister, while the surrounding gunmen fired into the air.
Mahmoud said the woman remained silent throughout and did not resist her captors.
Neighbors of the woman said she had four children; two boys and two girls, ranging in age from 11 to three and a half.
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