Phalasteen, Oh, Phalasteen!

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - The young woman's brother shoved her out of a car, tied a black blindfold around her face and shot her repeatedly in the head and chest.

Wedad Abu Mustafa, a 26-year-old mother of four, was killed hours after her alleged illicit lover Jefal Abu Srour was dragged by Palestinian gunmen into the center of the Balata refugee camp, thrown to the ground and riddled with more than 40 bullets.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group whose stronghold is in the camp near Nablus where Wedad and Jefal lived, accused the couple of breaking the biggest taboo in their society -- collaborating with the Israeli enemy.

"If it was just a matter of love and romance then we would not have interfered but they were also traitors," said Abu Ahmed, an al-Aqsa member involved in executing the supposed lovers.

The pair were accused of telling Israeli forces the hiding place of Wedad's fugitive husband and his two al-Aqsa comrades. Israeli troops killed the three men.

"We are not talking about ordinary collaborators," said Abu Ahmed. "They were members of a specially trained Israeli unit."

Wedad's brother, egged on by the gunmen to redeem his family's honor by executing his sister, chose to kill her outside a Nablus hospital so her corpse would not lie in the street long enough to attract flies, al-Aqsa members said.

Moments after Wedad slumped to the ground in a pool of blood, orderlies ran out of the hospital, lifted her body onto a stretcher and carried her into its morgue.

The only evidence of Wedad and Jefal's "crimes" comes from the killers themselves and from a terrified and tearful confession by Jefal which was videotaped by the gunmen.

"We told him he needed to cleanse himself of these shameful acts," said Abu Ahmed.

Both Wedad and Jefal were killed immediately after that confession was taped on May 30, 2006.

OTHER SIDE OF STORY A MYSTERY

The couple's side of the story will never be known.

Close relatives are keeping a low profile, possibly because they are afraid or aware that accusations of treason and adultery are like marks of Cain in their traditional society.

But in Balata, where photographs of dead gunmen pasted on concrete walls turn squalid alleys into local halls of fame, residents speculate in whispers about what happened.

"Did she do it?" asked a neighbor. "Only Allah, knows."

The story began February 23, 2006, when Israeli soldiers burst into the house where Wedad's husband and two al-Aqsa comrades, including a local militant leader, were hiding. The soldiers killed all three.

Al-Aqsa gunmen suspected Wedad of leading soldiers to her husband's hide-out in a secret annex of the family home at the behest of Jefal.

After the Israeli raid, al-Aqsa militants separately snatched Wedad and Jefal, interrogating them twice over a two-week period before they were executed.

"They confessed to standing inside the house and pointing to the hiding place for the soldiers," Abu Ahmed said.

The al-Aqsa Brigades say they also videotaped Wedad's confession, but have refused to allow anyone to see it, saying they have promised the family not to further publicize her shame.

"Wedad was not easy to question. She was aggressive. She had lost all human feelings," Abu Ahmed said. "She was the most dangerous female collaborator ever."

A passer-by who witnessed Wedad's execution noticed a plaster cast on her leg from ankle to thigh.

"I heard they (the al-Aqsa men) broke her leg during the first interrogation," said the witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to a medical source, Wedad had been hospitalized for three days some two weeks before she died.

CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE?

Some evidence appears to contradict the assertion by al-Aqsa members that only inside information could have led soldiers to the militants' secret hiding place in the family home.

Television footage of the operation taken by a Palestinian cameraman hiding in an adjacent house shows that the militants opened fire as the Israeli soldiers entered the dwelling, immediately giving away their own location.

"Terrorists, terrorists," an Israeli soldier shouts in apparent surprise, calling for reinforcements after two of his comrades are wounded as they burst through the door.

The abandoned house is scarred with bullet holes from that fateful day. The gunmen's hiding place, in what now appears an obvious position by the entrance to the house, is exposed by a gaping hole in a cinder block wall blasted out by a grenade.

"I heard a different story, that she (Wedad) warned her husband the soldiers were coming," said human rights lawyer Bahaa Saadi.

Abu Ahmed said the couple held their trysts in the house. Yet no one in the teeming refugee camp, where privacy is at a premium, noticed any love affair conducted by Wedad, mother of a new baby.

Accusations of an illicit relationship raised eyebrows among camp residents who knew Wedad, a pious Muslim who wore traditional black robes and headdress.

"She was very shy and we were surprised when we heard she was involved in such business," said a childhood friend.

Despite gnawing suspicions that the al-Aqsa account might not be accurate, nobody in the camp speaks up for Wedad.

Militants have killed four alleged collaborators in Balata over the past month. Those who defend the accused risk being tarred with the same brush.

The gunmen say they take the law into their own hands against spies for the Israeli military because official Palestinian law and order has broken down.

Wedad's brother, residents say, had a nervous breakdown after he executed his sister.

Her 8-year-old daughter sat by her grave for days. Her vigil ended only when the family sent her and three siblings to live with a relative in a distant West Bank town.

Wedad "was killed to restore the family's honor," said Majdi Abu Mustafa, her brother-in-law. "Now that we've finished with her filthy deeds we can once again walk with our heads raised."