RAMALLAH, January 26, 2011 (JMCC) - Al-Jazeera satellite channel and the Guardian newspaper have published details of Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation in what are perhaps the most damaging revelations of a series of internal documents being publicized by the two media agencies.
One document reported by the Guardian
describes a conversation between Palestinian and Israeli officials, in which
Israel asks Palestinians to kill Hassan Madhoun, a leader of an armed
Fateh group in the
Gaza Strip.
Madhoun's whereabouts were known to Israel and to Rashid Abu Shabak, a Fatah veteran and head of the PLO's Preventive Security Organisation in the Gaza Strip, which Israel was preparing to evacuate unilaterally that August.
We know his address ... Why don't you kill him? Mofaz asked in a meeting in Tel Aviv earlier that summer.
The defence minister alleged Madhoun was planning to attack one of the crossing points from Gaza into Israel. He is not Hamas and you can kill him.
Yousef, apparently reluctant, replied laconically that instructions had been given, but then complained: The environment is not easy, our capabilities are limited, and you haven't offered anything.
In the event, Madhoun died at the hands of Israeli forces in retaliation for a suicide bombing carried out by another Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad, which killed five Israelis in an open-air market in the northern town of Hadera on 26 October.
Palestinian security spokesperson Adnan Dameeri, speaking to al-Jazeera Tuesday night, categorically denied that Palestinian security officials had anything to do with the assassination of Hassan Madhoun, which was carried out by an Israeli attack helicopter one month after the conversation took place.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fateh faction to which Madhoun belonged, also came out in a late Tuesday press conference saying that they blame only Israel for his killing.
The papers also
describe a MI-6 plan for the Palestinian security forces that enforced a crackdown on money and arms flowing into the
occupied Palestinian territories. The plan (
available here) also proposed the detention of
Hamas and
Islamic Jihad activists and a direct line to
Tel Aviv security organs.
Hamas political leader Hassan Yousef told al-Jazeera International Tuesday night that this was the first Hamas had heard of such direct British involvement in the crackdown on its members in the West Bank.
The documents make it clear that American, Israeli and Palestinian officials were aware that Palestinian activists were being tortured in Palestinian jails.