Palestinians kill Arab woman who 'helped Israel'

Palestinian militiamen dragged a mother from her home and shot her in the head in a town square, making her the first Arab woman to be murdered during the intifada for allegedly collaborating with Israel's armed forces.

Reports from Tulkarm, a West Bank town that has been under an Israeli military blockade for months, said Ikhlas Khouli, 35, was killed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which believed she helped the Israelis kill one of its members.

The woman's son, Bakir, 17, said that armed men had grabbed him, placed a bag over his head, and tortured him until he invented a story about his mother – which led to her death.

He said he told them that she passed information to Israeli intelligence about the whereabouts of Ziad Daas, a local al-Aqsa Brigades leader killed by Israeli forces this month.

The youth showed bruises which he said were the result of being beaten with an electrical cord. Mrs Khouli was a widow; her husband, a coffee seller, died eight months ago.

Najla'a Khouli, 18, one of her seven children, broke down in tears when she spoke of her mother, whose body she said she saw in a Tulkarm hospital. "It was a horrible sight. I would never have imagined that one day I would see my mother like this," she said.

One of the militiamen was quoted yesterday saying that they videotaped a confession by Mrs Khouli before killing her. In it, she allegedly admitted recruiting Bakir to assist her.

She was shot at close range once through the skull and twice in the chest, said doctors.

Lynchings and executions without legitimate trials of men accused of collaborating with Israel have become relatively commonplace during the 23-month intifada. Dozens have been killed. But this weekend's killing is believed to be the first such attack against a woman, and will have engendered profound disgust among moderate Palestinians.

Moderation is, however, in short supply on both sides. A weekend poll by the popular Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper found that two thirds of the 500 Israelis surveyed believed the Oslo peace accords hurt Israel.

Nearly the same number – 61 per cent – opposed allowing any more Palestinians to return to work in Israel if violence calmed down. The Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's strategy of blocking political negotiations until the fulfilment of a long and – in the view of many international observers – deliberately unrealistic list of demands has placed him in good standing at home.

The same newspaper poll put him 43 percentage points ahead of the Labour leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and 20 points above Mr Ben-Eliezer's new challenger from within Labour, Amram Mitzna.