Alleged Israel Informant Slain

Hamas militants killed a Palestinian whose information they said had helped Israel assassinate the group’s founder and at least seven others, dumping the alleged collaborator’s bullet-ridden body near a trash can on a Gaza street, where it was found Saturday.

The militants said Hassan Musallam, in his 20s, had confessed under interrogation to providing Israel with the information that enabled it to kill the group’s founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and the others in March.

Musallam’s body was discovered two days after an Israeli airstrike killed Adnan Gul, a top Hamas bomb maker and weapons engineer who had been on Israel’s most-wanted list since 1990. Family members said he had been missing for days.

Militants have not often killed informants in the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian security services still function to some degree. Hamas said the killing was a warning to collaborators.

Also Saturday, a team of Tunisian doctors arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah. They were to examine Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who has the flu.