Palestinians on Monday demanded the execution of four men for the rape and murder of a Gaza girl of 16, a rare sex crime which has deepened fears of a slide into lawlessness accelerated by the conflict with Israel.
"Human wolves," the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam headlined in reference to the arrested suspects in a case that has shocked the Palestinians' conservative Muslim society, where rape has long been a taboo topic.
Gazans knew that the girl was abducted as she left school last September and found strangled 48 hours later in a garbage bin. But investigators did not confirm until Friday, when they announced the arrest of the suspects, that she had been raped.
"Death to the filthy killers!" chanted at least 4,000 Palestinians, including hundreds of students and militants firing rifles into the air, in a rally at a seaside refugee camp near the family home of the slain teenager, Maiada Abu Lamdi.
"We are asking the Palestinian Authority to implement the law of Allah - let the killers' hands and legs be cut off and let the killers be hung in public!" they shouted.
In the 1990s, a Gaza police officer was executed by firing squad for the rape of a boy after the news of his deed provoked riots demanding that he be put to death.
Colonel Majed Abu Shammala, Gaza's chief criminal investigator, said the suspects in the girl's case, all taxi drivers aged 22 to 24, had confessed under questioning and were charged with rape and murder. They were jailed pending trial.
Families of two of the suspects have publicly disowned them over the crime to avoid stigma and possible revenge attacks.
Abu Shammala said that in general, solving sex crimes was difficult because victims and families preferred not to talk or undergo legal procedures for fear of public shame.
He said scores of possible witnesses and suspects were questioned before the arrests were made.
Palestinians are grappling with a breakdown in law and order they say has been accelerated by Israeli army raids. Israel says the raids are to pre-empt Palestinian militant attacks, but Palestinians say they have also crippled their security services.
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