The body handed over by Hamas in October was supposed to be that of an Israeli soldier. Israeli forensic experts, however, disagreed, stating it did not belong to them. Hamas insisted. The remains were, in a way, claimed by both sides.
A Life Shrouded in Secrecy and Suspicion
The body was identified as that of Khalil Dawas, a Palestinian from Jericho in the occupied West Bank, suspected of working with Israeli forces. His story, pieced together from accounts in his community, is one of contradictions, grey zones, and the profound stigma of alleged collaboration.
Dawas was born in Jabaliya, Gaza, before his family moved to the West Bank, settling in the village of Tell near Nablus and later in Jericho's Aqabat Jabr refugee camp. In his 20s, he joined a Palestinian faction, according to Naser Shalwn, head of the camp. His life took a decisive turn with his arrests by Israeli authorities.
Shalwn states Dawas spent a total of six and a half years in Israeli prisons. The Palestinian prisoners ministry confirmed his last detention was in 2020, when he was held for six months without charge in Ofer prison under administrative detention. It is during such vulnerable periods in custody that Israel's security apparatus is widely reported to recruit informants, using a range of pressures from threats to the exploitation of personal secrets.
The Unraveling of a Life in the Camp
After his release, residents of Aqabat Jabr noticed a change in Dawas. He began selling ammunition at suspiciously low prices, a red flag for local resistance members. In the West Bank, bullet smugglers are often seen as ambiguous figures, sometimes tolerated by Israeli authorities to track militant networks.
Suspicions hardened into certainty for the community following a deadly Israeli raid on the camp on 6 February 2023. The IDF killed at least five men, later withholding their bodies. A week after this operation, Dawas was arrested by the Palestinian Authority on suspicion of collaboration. He was released in April due to lack of evidence but returned to a community that had utterly rejected him.
"Some men grabbed him in the street and tortured him for hours," Shalwn recounted. "They told him to leave Jericho and never come back. If he did, they said they would kill him." Faction members in Jericho who spoke to The Guardian uniformly described him as a traitor and a source of shame.
A Mysterious Death and a Final Rejection
Dawas then disappeared for a year. His story resurfaced dramatically in May 2024, during the Gaza war. Hamas published video of a bloodied body in military uniform, claiming it was an Israeli soldier captured in Jabaliya. To those in Aqabat Jabr, the face was unmistakably Khalil Dawas.
Angry residents tried to storm his family home. Under pressure, his mother and brother issued a statement disowning him. His body remained in Gaza until 14 October 2024, when Hamas handed over four bodies as part of a ceasefire exchange. Israel identified three as soldiers killed on 7 October 2023: Col Asaf Hamami, Capt Omer Maxim Neutra, and Staff Sergeant Oz Daniel. The fourth was Dawas.
Israel offered to return his remains to his family. They refused. A Palestinian Authority official from Jericho explained: "People in the camp said that accepting and burying the body would only encourage others to follow his path. So he will not be accepted, dead or alive."
This final rejection underscores the deep stigma faced by alleged collaborators in Palestinian society. Families may forgo funerals for fear of reprisals; graves have been desecrated. Hillel Cohen, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, notes that exposed collaborators are typically relocated and supported by Israeli authorities to build new lives, a process shrouded in silence.
Both Israeli and Palestinian officials remain largely silent on such cases. Israel's Shin Bet and the IDF declined to comment. A brigadier general in the Palestinian Authority's security services, speaking anonymously, called Dawas "a disgrace for all the Palestinians."
To this day, the final resting place of Khalil Dawas's remains is unknown, a fittingly obscure end for a life lived in the darkest shadows of a protracted conflict.
