Five Palestinians were killed over the weekend in violence related to the intifada.
Two were young children, shot during skirmishes with Israel Defense Force soldiers in Gaza Strip refugee camps.
Three others were murdered by fellow Arabs who may have suspected them of collaborating with Israeli authorities.
The army said it was investigating the death of Bothina Hejo, aged 3, who died of gunshot wounds in her chest after the IDF opened fire to quell disturbances in the Khan Yunis refugee camp.
Another Gaza youngster, 13-year-old Faez Jabber Abu Abeid, died Sunday of wounds suffered in a clash with troops Saturday.
The three murder victims this weekend were either suspected collaborators or the victims of personal vendettas.
A falafel vendor, 52-year-old Murshid Kanira, was stabbed to death in broad daylight at his stand in the center of Nablus on Saturday, in view of hundreds of witnesses and an army lookout post nearby.
Eyewitnesses said they saw two youngsters approach the stand, knife the vendor several times and calmly walk away. The incident caused no stir.
“We treat collaborators like a dead dog or a slaughtered chicken,” one Nablus merchant said.
The strangled body of Jamal Taha, 30, was found Saturday at the entrance to Bidya village in the Samaria district of the West Bank, where he taught school. He lived in the nearby village of Sarta.
Witnesses said Taha was accosted by local youths who questioned him and roughed him up before he was murdered.
BEATEN AND STABBED
Samer Kamal, 23, lived in the Nablus shuk. He was beaten and stabbed to death Friday.
According to unofficial statistics, 95 of the estimated 600 Palestinians killed since the intifada began were murdered as collaborators, with nearly half of them killed in the last three months.
But the Israeli authorities claim that at least 45 were not collaborators.
According to the authorities, some of the murders were the result of criminal disputes in the Palestinian underworld. Others were the settling of personal scores.
All were made to appear as if Palestinian patriots had removed traitors and collaborationists.
The escalating violence within the Palestinian community has alarmed leaders of the intifada.
A recent leaflet published by the uprising’s Unified Command urged activists “to exercise reason in reaching verdicts; not to execute people except in clear cases of collaboration, when treason is proven conclusively and only with the approval by the authorized bodies.”
The Israeli authorities have armed certain Palestinians who assist in security related matters.
Some have recently used their weapons to settle private scores.
Residents of Samaria talk of a local militia which terrorizes the families of persons they suspect are intifada activists.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
