Victim of Mob Justice Is Laid to Rest

They buried Ibrahim Abdou in a small concrete tomb in a field of red poppies and pine trees. Blood smeared his face, and olive branches lined his coffin.

He was single, one of seven brothers who grew up in this ancient Christian community a few miles north of Ramallah.

He was a man whom rumor held to be a collaborator, a Palestinian who helped the Israeli army during its recent invasion of the West Bank. And for that, he died a brutal death.

“I hope my brother will at least be buried in peace to make up for the pain he suffered when he died,” older brother Yacoub said Wednesday.

Abdou, 24, was killed by an angry mob of Palestinians on Monday in Ramallah. The death came just a few days after the Israeli army pulled back from most of the West Bank city, which was devastated by three weeks of fighting, its police force destroyed and its justice system now nonexistent.

The killing of suspected informants has long been a divisive issue in the Palestinian territories. The Israeli security apparatus is famous for its network of spies, bought with money or promises of work permits. Sometimes it resorts to blackmail, promising to vacate a prison term or stop the arrest of a loved one.

But as Palestinians begin rebuilding after the Israeli invasion, there are growing fears about a surge of vigilante justice. Since the Israeli army pulled back last week, five Palestinians have been killed by mobs.

The most recent attack occurred Tuesday, when three men were dragged from their beds in the West Bank city of Hebron and shot to death. One of the bodies was strung up on a utility pole as children watched.

There is precedent for such incidents: The estimated 2,000 Palestinians killed between 1987 and 1993 during the first uprising against Israeli rule included about 900 who were slain by fellow Palestinians. And mob justice increased again after the current intifada began in September 2000.

But many Palestinians fear that the bloodletting might become much worse now. It will take weeks, if not months, to begin rebuilding the Palestinian Authority’s shattered police force.

“Now everyone who has something against someone else will be able to accuse them and kill them,” Alexandra Odeh, 60, said at Abdou’s funeral. “This is chaos.”

The events leading to Abdou’s killing began Monday morning, when he decided to look for work in Ramallah after the Israeli military had pulled back. His father, 55-year-old Yusef, begged him not to go.

“It’s still uncertain what is going on,” he told his son. “You must be careful.”

About 1:30 that afternoon, Abdou and two other men were riding in a taxi in a trash-filled square in downtown Ramallah. Suddenly, a band of men wearing masks pulled them from the vehicle.

As taxis blared their horns and onlookers cheered, the masked men pumped round after round of bullets into the legs of the three men. They writhed on the ground and pleaded for mercy. One man reportedly recited verses from the Koran traditionally used for those at the point of death.

Ambulance crews managed to rescue two of the men, who remained in the central hospital Wednesday. But Abdou was dragged for several blocks along the street, bleeding to death.

The masked men, who fled in a car, shouted that they were from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement that has been responsible for many suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis in recent months.

It is unclear what tagged Abdou as an informant. Witnesses said the masked men accused him of helping in the capture of Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader seized by the Israelis last week.

Abdou’s family denied that but acknowledged that he once worked for a branch of the Palestinian intelligence service. He tried to quit but was once arrested by the Palestinians and held for what one of his brothers termed “misbehavior.”

The family’s version is that the other two men attacked on Tuesday had been jailed by the Palestinians, accused of having worked as collaborators, when the Israelis invaded last month and freed them. Abdou might have known the men from his time in the intelligence service.

Family members made no mention of a taxi. They said that as the two men were being attacked, they saw Abdou and called out his name, leading the mob to turn on Abdou as well.

On the wall of the family’s squat stone home just off the main road through Jifna, a notice proclaimed that the men were victims of “personal differences” with the masked men. It was signed by a previously unheard-of group called the Islamic Army, Osama bin Laden Brigade.

Although the truth might never be known, the Abdou family’s version is given credence by the fact that most vigilante executions are accompanied by a signed statement to the media from a group taking responsibility for the act, something that didn’t occur in this case.

“My brother was clean,” Yacoub Abdou said. “They had nothing against him.”

Whatever the case, the terrible repercussions of having an accused collaborator in the family were evident Wednesday as Yacoub Abdou went through the long and painful process of burying his brother.

He arrived at the hospital just before noon and was taken to the morgue behind the building. He began sobbing as a nurse dragged his sibling’s body from a cooler, the hands and feet bound in white cloth, a white rag tied around the jaw. She used a cotton ball to close the wide-open eyes and mouth.

Locals were scared to be seen talking with a reporter who was present, and several young boys whispered and frowned as Yacoub Abdou loaded his brother’s body into the back of a black hearse.

It took nearly half an hour across roads torn up by Israeli tanks to make the trip back to Jifna, a biblical-era town with a few hundred Christian Palestinians.

Normally, the entire population of such a small village shows up for a funeral. But this time, only about 100 family members and friends were waiting when the body arrived.

Norma Abdou began sobbing when people carried her son’s coffin into the family’s living room and removed the lid. She kissed Ibrahim’s face, saying over and over, “My son, my son.”

As rows of men stood outside, the women crowded into the living room. The mother put a cigarette in Ibrahim’s mouth. “It’s our tradition,” a man said. Norma Abdou placed a favorite Nike cap on her son’s head, then took it off and put it on her own head before collapsing.

As the funeral procession later made its way through the town, there were yet more signs of disrespect. By custom, merchants are supposed to close up shop when a funeral passes. But several did not, leading to a clash between the family and a drugstore owner.

Yacoub Abdou said family members are worried about what might happen to them, but he vowed not to seek revenge.

The family held a short service in the town’s ancient Greek Orthodox church. Incense filled the air. The men sang a low, mournful chant. Family members came up one by one to kiss Ibrahim three times on his forehead.

Finally, the mourners lifted the coffin and made their way to the tiny walled cemetery beside the church.

They slid the body into an above-ground family tomb, then a worker sealed it with cement. A chill wind blew, and the sky was overcast.

The crypt’s black door closed with a thud.