Palestinians collect $60,000 to rebuild dead attacker's home

Palestinian well-wishers have raised more than $60,000 to rebuild the Halabi family's West Bank home, demolished by Israel after one its sons killed two Israelis, organisers of the collection said Tuesday.

Mohannad Halabi, a 19-year-old student, stabbed two Israeli men to death in Jerusalem's Old City before police shot him dead.

The October 3 killings were among the first of the current wave of violence which to date has claimed the lives of 23 Israelis and an American in Palestinian attacks including stabbings, car rammings and gunfire.

And 149 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks, seen by some as heralding a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

The Israeli army on Saturday carried out the punitive demolition of the Halabi home in the occupied West Bank village of Surda, near Ramallah.

Claimed by the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad group as one of its members, Halabi is seen by some Palestinians as a laudable figure of resistance to Israeli rule.

The grassroots campaign to rebuild his family home took off quickly.

"In two days we raised $60,000," campaign coordinator Morsi Abu Ghueila told AFP, standing next to a large transparent collection box in a central Ramallah square, labelled "Mohannad Halabi, initiator of the Jerusalem intifada."

Inside lie banknotes in Israeli shekels, Jordanian dinars, US dollars and euros.

People are also donating building materials said campaign spokesman Abdel Karim Abu Arqub.

Standing in the ruins of his home, Mohannad's father Shafiq Halabi paid tribute to "the help of the Palestinian people."

The Israelis forbade him to rebuild it but he pledges that if they stop him, "I shall put up a tent here and return to live on my land with my children."

Israel has stepped up such punitive demolitions in an effort to deter attacks but it is condemned by rights groups as collective punishment against entire families.

Photo: Palestinians count money during a fundraising campaign aimed at rebuilding the family home of Mohannad Halabi . (Yahoo)