A Palestinian Authority security court sentenced three...

A Palestinian Authority security court sentenced three Palestinian men, Samir Abu-Zeina, Amjad Hafarza and Hussein Abu-Alayoun, to death for collaboration with Israel over the killing in December of a senior Fatah official.
Mohammed Abdul Rahman, 17, escaped the death penalty because he was a minor, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Husan Afif Khalil was released due to mental instability.
The five men were accused of treason and collaboration with Israeli intelligence services, and aiding in the assassination of Thabet Thabet in the West Bank City of Tulkarm in December 2000.
The verdict was greeted by clapping and cheering by the crowd in the courtroom.
Thabet was a leader in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
The trial's conclusion was anticipated by a day because of the attack earlier in the day by Israeli forces on a Hamas office in Nablus which killed eight people, including two senior Hamas leaders and two children.
Nablus Governor Mahmud Aloul, who attended the sentencing, told Reuters: "We were obliged to make it today because of what happened here with the Israeli raid."
Aloul said sentencing the collaborators on the day when the attack took place would serve as a deterrent to possible collaborators. It would also allow the verdict to be publicised ahead of the funerals of the Hamas victims of the Israeli attack. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated and clashed with police across the West Bank and Gaza, enraged at the latest Israeli attack on militants and demanding revenge. In the village of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem, three masked men killed a 57-year-old Palestinian with a bullet to the head for alleged collaboration with Israel, Palestinian security sources said.
The death sentences passed down in Nablus, which are to be carried out by firing squad, must still be ratified by Arafat.