Arab Accused as Collaborator Slain in Nablus Hospital Bed

A 60-year-old Palestinian, reputed to be an Israeli collaborator, was shot to death Thursday in his hospital bed in the West Bank city of Nablus, Israel Radio reported.

Taleb Yamin had been stabbed by fellow Arabs earlier this week and was recovering in a Nablus hospital when he was fatally shot by an Arab, the report said.

A second Palestinian, identified in press reports as another alleged collaborator, was shot in the head as he stood outside a Nablus police station. Severely wounded, the victim, Fayel Sawalha, 48, was flown out of the tense West Bank city by an Israeli army helicopter.

Military authorities sealed Nablus in the wake of the attacks, barring reporters and others from the city, the most populous in the West Bank.

Yamin’s assassination raised the toll in a shadowy sub-category of violence in the nearly 18-month-old Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza territories. More than 40 Palestinians have been killed by Arab gunmen, apparently because they had been helping the Israeli authorities.

On Wednesday, also in Nablus, a 30-year-old Palestinian was found beaten to death and hanging from a power pylon.

The assassinations, many brazen but none more so than the shooting of Yamin in his hospital bed, are rarely resolved. No person or political group has so far claimed responsibility for the three attacks in Nablus.

Violence of the intifada has taken a turn to the political extremes in recent weeks. Clashes between Palestinian and Jewish settlers on the West Bank have stirred a strident public debate over the role of the army in controlling the violence and the rights of the settlers in self-defense.

Last week, a group of settlers shot up an Arab village south of Nablus in reprisal for an earlier stone-throwing attack. A teen-age Palestinian girl was killed in the incident. On Thursday, an Israeli magistrate ordered two Jews from a religious school to remain in detention while an investigation of the incident continued.

According to the Israel Radio report, the judge labeled the attack on the village an “unprovoked and indiscriminate pogrom.”