Gazans Witness Crackdown on Alleged Collaborators with Israel

Muhammad Aweidah, 18 years old, returns from his work at the Firas Market in Gaza City, where he slaughters and sells chickens. Ashamed, he covers his face as he hears those around him whispering about his late father, Ashraf Abdel Samia Aweidah. His mother, Khatam, as is her custom, goes to check in on him and asks him, "What’s the matter? Why all of this grief?” He responds saying, "All the people are saying dad was a collaborator." With all the tenderness of a mother, and the certainty of a wife who spent more than 20 years with her husband, she admonishes him saying, “Your father was honorable all his life, and you know full well that he died a wronged man."

Khatam’s husband, Ashraf Aweidah, was killed by armed groups in Gaza on Friday, Nov. 16, 2012, during the most recent shelling of the Gaza Strip. His body was tossed into one of the streets of Gaza City with a paper attached to him that labeled him an Israeli informant and the reason behind the assassination of dozens of Palestinian leaders.

The certainty with which Khatam reassures her son is matched by that of a source from the Interior Ministry in the Gaza government, who wished to remain anonymous, when he says that Aweidah was one of Israel’s most effective informants detained in Palestine since the 1980s. He alleges that Aweidah caused the deaths of 11 Palestinian leaders, including five from Hamas. He said that Aweidah had believed up until the last moments of the shelling campaign that there was an exchange agreement and that Israel would take him and save him.

From her family’s home in the Zeitoun neighborhood, Aweidah’s wife Khatam told Al-Monitor that her husband was killed unjustly and the problem arose because of the Jeep Magnum that he had bought a month before his arrest. Investigators explained to her sons that this car was suspicious and had been under surveillance for a long time. She added, "The issue is the car and its owner, not its new owner, my husband."