Gunmen kill 2 Israeli informers in Gaza hospital

[JohnLocke]

Gunmen kill 2 Israeli informers in Gaza hospital
By Joel Greenberg -- Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
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JERUSALEM — Palestinian gunmen burst into Gaza City's main hospital twice yesterday and killed two convicted informers for Israel in their beds after they were wounded when a prison guard hurled grenades into their cell, medical and security officials said.
The killings heightened concerns about spreading lawlessness in the Palestinian areas, which in recent weeks have seen violence triggered by factional power struggles and demands for reforms in the Palestinian Authority.
Yesterday's violence began when a Gaza Central Prison guard hurled two hand grenades into a cell that held inmates convicted of serving as informers for the Israeli security services.
Seven prisoners were injured; one later died of his wounds.
At Shifa Hospital in downtown Gaza City, where the wounded were treated, gunmen entered the room of Mahmoud al-Sharif and shot him in the head, police and medical staff said.
Al-Sharif was convicted in 1999 of giving Israel information that led to the killing of his cousin, an Islamic Jihad leader.
A few hours later, about 20 men in four vehicles pulled up at the hospital and blocked the street as four gunmen went into the intensive-care unit and fatally shot Walid Hamdiyeh.
The dead prisoner had been convicted in 2002 of giving information that helped Israeli security forces track and kill five Hamas members, including Imad Akel, a commander of the group's armed wing.
Unarmed guards patrol the Gaza City hospital, but entry is unrestricted.
Hamas' armed wing claimed responsibility for the grenade attack and Hamdiyeh's death.
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Read the rest here.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Human Rights Watch: Killings in Hospital Violate Laws of War

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline New York, Tuesday August 3

Gaza: Killings in Hospital Violate Laws of War

Palestinian vigilantes apparently affiliated with the Hamas movement violated the core principles of international humanitarian law by attacking a hospital and killing two wounded men in custody who had been accused of collaborating with Israel, Human Rights Watch said today.
On Monday, gunmen carried out separate daylight attacks in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital against Muhammad al-Sharif and Walid Hamdiya, who had been badly wounded earlier that morning in an attack on a prison run by the Palestinian Authority. In the earlier attack, one or more grenades were thrown into a cell-block housing accused collaborators. A third man, Musa Awda, died from wounds sustained in the grenade attack, which reportedly wounded seven people . . . .
"These brutal executions go against the most fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. "The assailants targeted two wounded men who were not engaged in combat, but were rather in custody without any means to defend themselves."

Read more.

[Gimel]

2. It's not the 1st time either

Just a few months ago two other hospital assassinations were carried out.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Collaboration....

While I agree with HRW that it's a violation of international humanitarian law, if these men really were collaborating I find it hard to feel too much sympathy for them. Then again, the reasons why they were collaborating in the first place would play a part in how I'd feel about them too. I don't know whether any court that's tried collaborators has been or ever could be impartial and unbiased, especially in the situation where an occupation is still continuing. I doubt that the court that tried Vichy collaborators after the war was impartial and unbiased, and while France was occupied, some collaborators were killed without being tried at all. Anyway, before they murdered those men, the gunmen should have looked at the pattern of resistance and collaboration in Vichy France and considered that collaborators did end up becoming resisters, and that some who collaborate do so because to them it's the only alternative to death for them or their families, or because they make a choice that they didn't see as collaborating that backs them into a corner where the choice whether or not to collaborate is removed...

Violet...