JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian military court sentenced a 50-year-old Palestinian to death for helping Israel carry out a lethal attack, part of a crackdown against collaborators inside the courtroom and on the streets.
Ahmed Abu Issah acknowledged that he gave the Israelis information on the movements of Salah Darwazeh, who was killed July 25 when his car was hit by Israeli missiles in the West Bank town of Nablus.
"I'm guilty and I'm asking for mercy," Issah, a laborer with nine children, told the court in Nablus. He received about $45 every time he provided information on Darwazeh's travel route, he said.
Despite Issah's plea, the three-judge panel gave him the death sentence after a 90-minute hearing. Spectators in the packed courtroom and some 2,000 people on the street chanted "execution, execution."
Palestinians say collaborators have played key roles in helping Israel carry out targeted attacks against suspected Palestinian militants. About 50 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks since fighting broke out last fall, according to Palestinians.
In violence Thursday, Palestinian Firas Abdel Haq, 23, was shot dead by Israeli troops near Nablus, Palestinian witnesses and hospital doctors said. The Israeli army said it fired on two Palestinians trying to plant a bomb. One was killed and the other escaped, the army said.
Also, Israeli police said they narrowly averted a bomb attack on a bus traveling past the northern farming village of Tel Telomim.
A Palestinian man tried to board with a bag of explosives, only to be turned back by the driver and grabbed by two off-duty soldiers on the bus before the bomb could be detonated, said police spokesman Yossi Hasson.
Meanwhile, two suspected Palestinian collaborators were shot dead Wednesday night in the West Bank, one in Ramallah and one near Bethlehem.
In a leaflet distributed Thursday in Bethlehem, a militant group loosely affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement claimed responsibility for both killings.
"We say to the rest of the spies that their turn is coming soon with the bullets of justice," the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade said in the leaflet. "We will never forget the blood of the innocent martyrs that you sold for a cheap price."
Another suspected collaborator, a 57-year-old man from Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, was gunned down Tuesday, Palestinian security officials said.
Also, five Palestinians were convicted Tuesday of helping Israeli special forces carry out the Dec. 31 killing of Thabet Thabet, the local leader of the Fatah faction in Tulkarem in the West Bank. Three were sentenced to death by firing squad, a fourth received a jail term and a fifth was freed.
The Palestinian search for collaborators comes after several high-profile Israeli attacks, including a helicopter raid in Nablus on Tuesday. Eight Palestinians were killed in the assault on the offices of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which has carried out numerous bombing.
The United States opposes Israel's targeted attacks, and the European Union on Thursday called the killings a breach of international law that "can only lead to further escalation."
Israeli leaders defended the action in the face of almost universal condemnation, saying Hamas leaders had already launched many bomb attacks in Israel and were preparing more.
