|
Trending Topics
|
Collaboration in Gaza Leads to Grisly Fate
(New York Times) Jodi Rudoren - When Fadel Shalouf's family went to pick up his body at the morgue the day after he was executed on a busy Gaza street corner, they found his hands still cuffed behind his back. During last month's battle with Israel, Hamas brutally and publicly put an end to Shalouf, 24, and six other suspected collaborators. The very definition of collaboration has expanded in recent years. Some in Hamas and more militant groups consider the Palestinian Authority to be aiding the enemy when it coordinates security services in the West Bank with Israel. Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, members of the rival Fatah faction who live there have almost universally been under suspicion. Shalouf had been abducted on Jan. 10, 2008. His father, Mussalam Shalouf, 57, said he was summoned by the internal security service nine days later, and found Fadel with broken fingers and burns from melted hoses having been dripped onto his skin, complaining that he had been hung from the ceiling by his ankles during interrogations. Since Fadel's imprisonment, family members said, neighbors have refused to meet their eyes. His younger brother, Bader, was arrested a year later on similar charges, but has not yet been tried. Mussalam Shalouf said that after Bader is released or executed, the family will leave Gaza, perhaps seeking asylum in Sweden. "It's like we are in a shed of cows, waiting their turn for slaughtering," he said.