A Palestinian man on Thursday accused Islamist Hamas militants in control of the Gaza Strip of torturing and killing his brother for publicly criticizing them.This is confirmed in the PalArab media.Osama Atallah, a teacher, was a supporter of the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the sworn enemy of Hamas, whose gunmen drove Fatah militia out of Gaza in 2007 and fought Israel's army in a three-week war this month.
His brother Bassam said masked gunmen in two jeeps arrived at the family home in the city of Gaza on Tuesday. They identified themselves as members of Hamas internal security and they arrested his brother Osama.
Bassam said the Hamas security service told the Atallah family Osama would be released in a matter of hours. But a Hamas government official, who is also a member of the Atallah family, later denied the teacher was in custody.
The family subsequently received a telephone call from hospital that Osama Atallah was in critical condition.
He later died of his wounds.
The 2009 Palarab self-death count is now (estimated) to be at 42.
A 14-year old boy was fond dead in a well in the West Bank, but that seems to have been accidental. But a new murder I was not aware of happened last month of a 13-year old, and I adjusted the self-death count from 2008 accordingly.