Tale Of A Target

(2 of 2)

In Nablus, under a baking sun, as many as 100,000 mourners gathered for a series of funerals. In just one 20-min. drive through the town, the full range of Palestinian rage was made plain. In the north was a funeral parade with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah flags, accompanied by the constant rattle of illegal M-16s. In a yellow truck on the main street, an open door revealed two militiamen holding machine guns at the ready. A clutch of gunmen, some with green headbands inscribed with Koranic verses, crowded round the gate to Nablus prison, hoping to lynch alleged collaborators held there. On the southern edge of the town, thousands jogged toward the Israeli checkpoint, some rolling tires that they would later set alight in a riot.

Arafat's Palestinian Authority tried to take some of the edge off the anger. With good reason. Much of the rage was aimed at Arafat's police for failing to protect Salim and Mansour. Within hours of the attack, Arafat's security court sentenced three men to death for allegedly collaborating with Israel. The judicial process was not much less swift or more formal than actions on the streets of West Bank towns; in the three days after the Israeli attack, lynch mobs murdered four other suspected collaborators. Hamas vowed it would take revenge. This terrible summer, the number of victims grows, and then grows some more.