Palestinian militants in a West Bank refugee camp shot and killed two alleged collaborators with Israel early Saturday, Palestinian officials said.
Mobs then kicked the bloodied corpses and dragged them through alleys before trying to tie them to an electrical tower.
The scenes, widely shared on social media, were reminiscent of the chaos in the West Bank during two Palestinian uprisings against Israeli rule that erupted in 1987 and 2000, each lasting several years. During those periods of heightened conflict, there were frequent killings of alleged informers, at times with bodies displayed in public.
Israeli military raids and Palestinian militancy in the West Bank have surged since Israel mounted its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel.
Over 230 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank in the past seven weeks, most of them during Israeli army raids targeting militants.
A Palestinian security officer said a local militant group in the camp, in the northern town of Tulkarem, accused two Palestinians of helping Israeli security forces target the group in a major army raid that killed three key militants on Nov. 6.
The two alleged informers were in their late 20s and early 30s, respectively, and one was from the camp, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
A second Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reason, confirmed that Palestinian security forces were aware of the incident. The public prosecutor’s office said it would have details in the coming days about a police investigation into the killings.
The local militant group — affiliated with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular nationalist Fatah party — posted a cryptic statement just after the two men were reported killed. “We did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves,” it said.
The family of one of the accused informers sought to distance themselves in a Saturday statement, calling their disgraced relative a “malicious finger that we have cut off without regret.”
“We affirm our complete innocence,” the family added, “and we won’t allow anyone to blame us for his guilt.”
A Palestinian journalist in the camp, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said residents of the camp beat and stomped on the corpses after the two were shot and killed by militants in the streets.
Videos show hundreds of Palestinians flocking to the entrance of the camp, gawking and filming with their phones as men try to hang the mutilated corpses from an electrical tower.
It apparently proved too difficult and residents ended up tossing the bodies over the walls of a UN school in the camp, tying their feet to a chain-link fence, the journalist said. They were not taken to the hospital, she said.
Purported confession videos surfaced online showing the two men, their eyes downcast, describing their recent interactions with Israeli intelligence officials who they said paid them thousands of dollars for information.
Israel’s Shin Bet security service has a long history of pressuring Palestinians to become informers. The Shin Bet did not respond to a request for comment on the killings.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and the sorry bastards will kill themselves off
Unfortunately these, so-called, sorry bastards, are not a bunch of Barney Fiffes with their bullets in their shirt pockets. No, these bastards are fully armed and supplied by Iran, coutesy of Joe Biden and Barack Obama with the pallets of money they continue to release to them for terrorist support and activities around The World!
These are the same people that used the citizens as human shields and now you see why these maniacs have to be rooted out or it will end up like Iraq Then they will have to come back but the next time there will be a different kind of play by Hamas will use IED’s boobytraps I mean they will learn and and they will get the things they need I would level the place and the people will have to move on They can go to Iran They might even try Turkey but it will never stop as long as they are there So it is up to them where they go Egypt won’t take them There are the countries that keep them with weapons and talk trash about the Israelis So if they care then it is time for them to open their brotherly welcome to their satellite of terror There are many places they can go but stop the deaths now Hamas does not care about the people They do what they do out of hatred and not will never change They teach it to the children so they grow up with this hate inside of them that will not leave Look at how they killed people randomly with no remorse at all
Hamas gotta go!
Their people? You mean the ones they use as shields to hide behind? Those people?
the same exact people who voted for hamas, yes, those people.
These intermittent breaks allowing them to call the shots and re-arm is outrageous, they need to be eliminated, the only way this will go away, and leave Israel alone, all the countries in the region to have peace..you do not have war to give breaks…we need real intelligent people in the US to get this over with as far as support. The human suffering is beyond any illusion we could have.