Palestinians collaborators are found dead

NABLUS, West Bank -- Militants killed 10 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, pulling most of them out of jail before slaying them in the street, Palestinian security sources said Monday.

The security sources said militants might be killing the suspected informers to prevent them from being freed by Israeli forces that have been moving into the West Bank the past four days.

In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade entered an apartment where seven suspected collaborators were being held by military intelligence Monday, the officials said. The gunmen took the prisoners into the street and shot them, leaving their bodies behind, the security sources said.

Police and guards in the apartment at the time did not try to stop the gunmen because they didn't want to raise tensions in the city, which has been surrounded by Israeli tanks, the security sources said.

Held prisoner for months

The seven men had been held in the apartment for about three months since the Israeli military demolished the Tulkarem prison in an incursion. The men had been prisoners for between six months and a year.

In Qalqilya, a town near Tulkarem that was taken over by Israeli forces late Sunday, the bodies of Iyad Abu Ishab, 20, and Walid Radwan, 22, were found riddled with bullets in a side street Monday.

Killed by prison guards

Palestinian security sources said the two men, who had been arrested on charges of collaboration more than a year ago, were killed by their prison guards. It was not immediately known whether they were killed in the prison and then dumped, or killed in the street.

The body of Mahmood Rahamie, 21, was found in Bethlehem near Manger Square, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

The Al-Aqsa Brigades, which is close to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, said in a statement that Rahamie had been killed after he was caught sending information to the Israelis through the Internet and e-mail. The escalation of violence in the past two months has seen an increase in the number of slaying of Palestinians suspected of helping Israel in its military operations. Ten were killed in March, compared with about 24 since fighting with Israel began 18 months ago.

Two weeks ago, militants tried to hang the body of an accused informer from a rooftop overlooking Manger Square in Bethlehem but were stopped by police.