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‘Informers’ Executed in Tulkaram amid Hamas’ Growing Influence in West Bank

Prisoners are released in Beitunia near Ramallah on Friday. (AF)
Prisoners are released in Beitunia near Ramallah on Friday. (AF)
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‘Informers’ Executed in Tulkaram amid Hamas’ Growing Influence in West Bank

Prisoners are released in Beitunia near Ramallah on Friday. (AF)
Prisoners are released in Beitunia near Ramallah on Friday. (AF)

Palestinian militants in the West Bank said they had killed two men accused of collaborating with Israeli authorities and hung their bodies up as a warning. 

A statement from the Tulkaram Brigades, a group based in the West Bank city of Tulkaram that is associated with the Fatah faction, said there was "no immunity for any informant or traitor". 

"We are on the lookout for him and we will hold him accountable," it said, referring to any such person. 

Footage shared on the Tulkaram Brigades Telegram channel showed a man apparently confessing to working with Israeli security services and providing details of his activities. 

Other footage, which could not be verified by Reuters, showed two dead bodies and bodies hung from a wall and an electricity pylon in front of angry crowds. 

The Tulkaram Brigades statement said anyone who had been working with Israeli security services had until Dec. 5 to come forward and repent. 

The Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian rights group, issued a statement criticizing extrajudicial killings but said Israeli authorities were responsible for recruiting Palestinian agents. 

There was no comment from the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governance in the West Bank, and no immediate comment from the Israeli security services. 

A Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Palestinian security forces were aware of the incident. The public prosecutor’s office said it would have details in the coming days about a police investigation into the killings. 

The family of one of the accused informers sought to distance itself in a statement Saturday, calling its disgraced relative a "malicious finger that we have cut off without regret." 

"We affirm our complete innocence," the family added, "and we won’t allow anyone to blame us for his guilt." 

Purported confession videos surfaced online showing the two men, worn out, their eyes downcast, describing their recent interactions with Israeli intelligence officials who they said paid them thousands of dollars for information. 

Israel's Shin Bet security service has a long history of pressuring Palestinians to become informers, including by blackmail or by promising work or entry permits for Israel. The Shin Bet did not respond to a request for comment on the killings. 

Israeli media claimed the executioners were Hamas gunmen. 

The latest incident provided further signs of the growing tension in the occupied West Bank, which has seen a surge in violence since the start of the Gaza war as Israeli military raids have intensified. 

Public execution-style killings of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel have been rare in recent years, but they were more common during the years of the Second Intifada uprising two decades ago. 

The West Bank had already been experiencing the highest levels of unrest in decades during the 18 months preceding the attack, but the assault on Israel by Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7 and the subsequent bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces has lifted the pressure to new levels. 

Over 230 Palestinian have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank in the past seven weeks alone, most of them during Israeli army raids targeting militants.  

On Saturday, Israeli forces raided the northern Palestinian town of Qabatiya seeking to arrest militants, sparking a firefight and killing a locally prominent doctor, 25-year-old Shamekh Abu al-Rub, Palestinian health officials said. Abu al-Rub was the son of Kamal Abu al-Rub, governor of the Palestinian city of Jenin. 

Meanwhile, Israel’s war on Gaza appears to have increased Hamas’s popularity in the West Bank. 

As hostages were released in a swap between the armed group and Israel, relatives of the freed detainees chanted slogans in support of Hamas. 

Hamas on Saturday released 17 hostages, including 13 Israelis, from captivity in the Gaza Strip, while Israel freed 39 Palestinian prisoners in the latest stage of a four-day ceasefire in the conflict. 

Hamas has been semi-banned on the West Bank in recent years. Its members have often feared Israeli prosecution and they also feared clashing with the PA, which had banned public Hamas activities. 

Effectively, Hamas’ October 7 operation against Israel has given the movement a boost in the West Bank. That was even before the hostage swap took place. 

A Hamas source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the current war against it in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as all past wars, have failed in "breaking Hamas. Rather the opposite has happened."  

"Hamas is rooted" in the Palestinian people, he stressed. 

Moreover, he stated that Hamas had never abandoned its role in the West Bank in spite of the open war against it. 

"It will never abandon it, but it will only consolidate its presence," he added. 

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Arab World

Israeli Soldiers Share Rare Accounts from Gaza: Killings Never Stopped

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Israeli Soldiers Share Rare Accounts from Gaza: Killings Never Stopped

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The Israeli combat soldier saw his teammates yelling in celebration, congratulating one another. They had just struck a vehicle of Palestinians driving near the Israeli-controlled part of the Gaza Strip, killing everyone inside.

The reservist said scenes like this had become common after a fragile ceasefire took effect in October. In the weeks he was stationed in Gaza, he said, he saw soldiers relishing the chance to go after those who crossed — or came close to crossing — the so-called yellow line that divides the strip into Israeli-controlled and Palestinian areas.

“It was a jungle,” the soldier, in his 20s, told The Associated Press. “After the ceasefire, the order was: If someone crosses the line, you shoot them.”

As diplomatic efforts to strengthen the deal have stalled, three soldiers described to AP a sense of confusion in the embattled territory, with a lack of clarity on rules of engagement around the yellow line. Some commanders paid lip service to the agreement, the soldiers said, while privately voicing desire for the war in Gaza to continue.

Sometimes, troops were too far away or acted too quickly to recognize who they were shooting, one soldier said — a concern echoed in comments from a whistleblower group of veterans.

Palestinians walk along a street surrounded by buildings destroyed by Israeli military strikes during the Israel-Hamas war in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The soldiers' accounts are a rare glimpse into what’s happened in the Israeli-controlled part of Gaza since the deal went into effect seven months ago. The soldiers — reservists deployed throughout Gaza between October and January who've since returned — spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared being ostracized over their comments. They said they were speaking out because they were angered and saddened by what they saw.

AP has documented shootings of Palestinian civilians, including children playing, close to the yellow line. And the soldiers said it felt like the killings never stopped amid the tenuous deal.

“To call it a ceasefire is a joke,” one soldier told AP.

Gaza's yellow line has been ambiguous, and Israel has taken control of more land When the ceasefire went into effect, Israel withdrew troops to a buffer zone demarcated by a yellow line, giving it control of just over half the strip.

Under the agreement, Israeli forces are meant to complete a fuller withdrawal, though there's no timeline for that. The US-backed diplomat overseeing the truce says progress is deadlocked over the central sticking point of disarming Hamas, upon which all other issues — including Israeli withdrawals and reconstruction — hinge.

In the meantime, Israel has expanded control over additional territory in Gaza. Both sides have accused the other of violating the ceasefire.

The line’s exact location has been ambiguous and sometimes invisible. In some places, it’s marked with yellow blocks and barrels; in others, it at times hasn't been indicated at all.

A concrete block marks the "Yellow Line" drawn by the Israeli military in Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip, on Nov. 4., 2025. AFP

The Israeli military invited AP this week to see a section of the yellow line in central Gaza, near the Maghazi refugee camp. The line there was visible, demarcated by a wide dirt path and small yellow markings. To the east was a desolate stretch of open space leading to a heavily fortified Israeli military post about 500 meters away.

An Israeli military commander said Hamas is active on the other side of the line and frequently sends people — militants and civilians — toward the line and even across it to test the army’s readiness and responses.

“There is no reason for anyone to come near the line,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military rules. “There’s nothing here.”

The army says the entire line, which stretches the length of Gaza, is now clearly marked.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 900 people have been killed in Gaza — dozens of those close to or over the yellow line, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry doesn't say how many are militants, but unarmed men and children have been among the dead.

Israel's military has said most of the people killed crossing the line posed a threat to troops. But soldiers who spoke to AP and Breaking the Silence — the whistleblower group that has collected troops' testimonies throughout the war — say that at times soldiers were too far away, acting too quickly and under too much pressure to tell.

Israel's army told AP that the area adjacent to the yellow line is a “sensitive operational environment” with signs saying approaching is prohibited. It said the army doesn't target civilians solely for approaching the line and that its rules of engagement require the use of warnings before using force. In situations involving an immediate threat, forces are authorized to act, it said.

One soldier says troops must act fast, with information sometimes based on a hunch It was the combat soldier's second tour in Gaza when the ceasefire began. He said he was posted several hundred meters from the yellow line and saw several people trying to cross it killed by soldiers.

Soldiers shooting or ordering drone strikes don't always know who's crossing the line, he said. Although soldiers must provide coordinates and get approval from superiors before striking, it's hard to give exact information as people are moving, he said. He described soldiers calling in coordinates based on a hunch or the last place they saw someone.

Breaking the Silence says the general rules of engagement are extremely permissive, especially for those crossing the line, with orders in many areas being “shoot to kill.”

Executive director Nadav Weiman, a veteran who served in Gaza but not in this war, said distance from the target and some trigger-happy soldiers can be problematic.

He said orders and policies from the military’s high commanders “have created a reality where countless civilians have and are being killed for crossing invisible lines.”

In one account to Breaking the Silence, in interview notes seen by AP, a soldier describes instructions for troops about anyone crossing the yellow line: “eliminate him no matter what."
Another soldier stationed in Gaza for weeks after the ceasefire said the message from commanders was to hold the line at all costs.

“There was a general feeling that human lives are not valuable,” he said.

When it came to demarcating the yellow line, the soldier said his superiors told him it was “too much work," not their job and that Palestinians should know where it was.

Being in Gaza took an emotional toll, he said.

Sometimes snipers fired warning shots at people close to the line, he said, but commanders told troops to do more to protect themselves. The soldier understood that to mean firing more lethal shots.

He and the other soldiers who spoke to AP said troops generally understood, based on leaders and fellow soldiers' actions, that Israel was in Gaza for the long run, not an eventual withdrawal.

An internal report circulated among aid groups last month and seen by AP said that across Gaza, Israel has become “increasingly proactive” with its strikes.

Separate data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a US-based nonprofit, said April was the deadliest month in Gaza this year and that recorded deaths near the yellow line or of people who crossed it increased by more than 25% from January to April, to 73 from 58.

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel controls 60% of Gaza and the next step was to move to 70% control.

The soldiers told AP that on the ground, the ceasefire is elusive.

“We need to stop using this term," one said of the word, ceasefire. "It’s not serving people that want to stop the war.”

Arab World

Palestinian Authorities Say Israeli Forces Kill Man Trying to Climb Barrier

Palestinians walk along the separation barrier between the West Bank and east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Sunday Feb. 15, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk along the separation barrier between the West Bank and east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Sunday Feb. 15, 2026. (AP)
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Palestinian Authorities Say Israeli Forces Kill Man Trying to Climb Barrier

Palestinians walk along the separation barrier between the West Bank and east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Sunday Feb. 15, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians walk along the separation barrier between the West Bank and east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Sunday Feb. 15, 2026. (AP)

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man Sunday as he attempted to enter Jerusalem by climbing over a barrier separating the city from the occupied West Bank, Palestinian authorities said.

The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah identified the man as Imad Haroun Ashtiyeh, 26, saying he was killed by Israeli gunfire near the town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem.

Ashtiyeh, a construction worker from the village of Salem near Nablus, had attempted to climb the barrier at Al-Ram along with a few other men to make his way to the Israeli city of Tel Aviv for work, said Omer, a relative who gave only his first name.

"But then he was shot while attempting to climb over," Omer told AFP.

An AFP journalist saw Ashtiyeh's corpse shrouded in a Palestinian flag at the Ramallah medical complex, his relatives weeping over his body.

The Palestinian Authority's press office wrote on X that "Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man seeking work while crossing the annexation and apartheid wall".

Al-Ram, located near the Qalandiya checkpoint, is separated from Jerusalem by a section of the barrier reinforced with barbed wire.

The Israeli military and police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israeli security officials say a significant number of Palestinians from the West Bank attempt to enter Israel illegally, often by climbing over the barrier.

They are driven largely by economic hardship and the loss of work permits since the Hamas assault that sparked the Gaza war in October 2023, Palestinian officials say.

Most of them are arrested, while some have died or been injured fleeing from Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.

Ashtiyeh is the fifth Palestinian killed trying to cross into Israel this year, and the 52nd since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.

Israel began building the barrier at the height of the second Palestinian intifada that erupted in 2002, saying it was needed to maintain security amid suicide bombings in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities.

The barrier cuts into many parts of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and Palestinians see it as a land grab and de facto border illegal under international law.

Israel maintains tight restrictions on the movement of the West Bank's roughly three million residents, who require special permits to cross checkpoints into east Jerusalem and Israel.

Violence has sharply escalated in the Palestinian territory since the Gaza war began.

At least 1,075 Palestinians -- both militants and civilians -- have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 2023, according to AFP figures based on Palestinian health ministry data.

In the same period, at least 46 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in attacks or military operations in the West Bank, Israeli official figures show.

Arab World

France Requests UN Security Council 'Emergency Meeting' on Lebanon

Israeli soldiers drive a tank in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli soldiers drive a tank in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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France Requests UN Security Council 'Emergency Meeting' on Lebanon

Israeli soldiers drive a tank in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli soldiers drive a tank in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

France has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after Israeli forces seized the medieval Beaufort castle in Lebanon, the French foreign minister said Sunday, AFP reported.

"I have requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council because, while we recognize Israel's right, like that of all countries, to self-defense... nothing can justify the continuation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its ever-deeper occupation of Lebanese territory," Jean-Noel Barrot said on the BFMTV channel.

On Sunday, Israeli troops have captured a strategic mountain topped with a Crusader-built castle in southern Lebanon in the deepest incursion into the country in more than a quarter-century.

The capture of Beaufort castle, near the city of Nabatiyeh, came after days of airstrikes and intense fighting in nearby villages where Israeli troops fought Hezbollah members in the rugged area.

Israel has since launched a ground invasion, capturing dozens of Lebanese villages and towns close to the border. Hezbollah has launched thousands of missiles and drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

The Israeli push came despite a nominal ceasefire that has been in place since April 17 and just days before Lebanon and Israeli hold their next round of direct talks in Washington starting Tuesday.