Fatah kills mother of 7 as 'collaborator'

Ikhlas Yasin's bullet-riddled body was found lying in the main square of Tulkarm in the Palestinian territory yesterday.

She was 39, a mother of seven. She had been kidnapped a day earlier. She was later shot dead by the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of Yasser Arafat's al-Fatah terrorist organization.

Her "crime" was collaboration with Israel.

At least 200 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel are being held in Palestinian Authority prisons, according to Palestinian sources, the Jerusalem Post reports today.

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Most were arrested by PA security forces in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, the sources said.

Dozens of suspected Palestinian collaborators have been killed since the beginning of a Palestinian uprising in September 2000, but Yasin was the first woman reported to be executed.

Palestinians in the city told the Post that her son, who had been kidnapped earlier by Fatah gunmen, had confessed that his mother had helped the Israeli security forces in killing Ziad Da'as, a wanted member of the Brigades.

At least 14 Palestinians have been killed in Tulkarm over the past three months on charges of collaboration with Israel.

More than 60 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been killed since the beginning of the intifada for allegedly helping Israel's Shin Bet security service. The PA executed at least five others for the same reason.

Among the suspects now awaiting trial are also some former Fatah and Hamas activists who have allegedly confessed to being on the Shin Bet's payroll.

Palestinian human rights groups and families of the detainees have complained that many were tortured during interrogation and some were forced to sign confessions.

"Arafat is under tremendous pressure to execute many collaborators," the sources added. "That's because there is a feeling that the Israelis have managed to recruit many collaborators. This explains why many top Hamas and Fatah activists have been killed or arrested by the Israeli army in the past few months."