Publicly executed minutes earlier as an alleged ‘spy for Israel’, his body was dragged through Gaza City by men on motorcycles, waving pistols triumphantly in the air.

Substitute horses for bikes, noted one witness, and it could almost have been a scene from the Crusades.

Along with five others, the ‘collaborator’ was killed on Tuesday for allegedly providing intelligence to enable Israel to pinpoint attack targets. He was shot twice and then ‘finished off’ with a blow from a heavy rock. Amid dizzying confusion at the height of the eight-day conflict, there were sketchy reports that the traitors were caught ‘red-handed’ with ‘high-tech filming equipment’.

The Mail on Sunday can today reveal that the dead man in the picture is 37-year-old father-of-five Ribhi Badawi, a Palestinian prisoner in Gaza. His family, neighbours and friends believe the notion that he spied for Israel is absurd – and there is much that supports their view, not least that as a prisoner Badawi was under armed guard during last week’s conflict.

Badawi was a member of the Islamist group Jaljalat – Thunder – which takes its inspiration from Al Qaeda and is more hardline than Hamas. He had been in prison since 2009 when he was arrested on terrorism charges. It was alleged he was one of several fighters planning to launch attacks on Hamas.

Badawi’s family claim that while in prison, he was tortured until he confessed to being a traitor.

‘Ribhi was a proud Palestinian. He loved his country with a rare passion and he was more opposed to Israeli occupation than Hamas is,’ said his widow Kholoud.

‘To see the body of my dear husband dragged through the streets like an animal is truly terrible. The men who did this were wild.’

Sitting in her cramped home with three-year-old daughter Baraa (whose name means Innocence), Kholoud then reveals another irony – that her husband was wanted by an Israeli military court for conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism following a foiled bombing mission.

The dead man’s family insists his execution had nothing to do with espionage but was rooted instead in political and tribal rivalry. ‘His enemies used the war as an excuse to kill him,’ said his widow, who alleges the man who arrested her husband had once been involved in a dispute with him.

Badawi told his family he was tortured by Hamas in the months after his arrest. For days on end, he said, he was suspended upside down and beaten. ‘They also put a machine gun in his mouth and threatened to shoot unless he signed a blank piece of paper,’ said his widow.

‘He is a tough man and he resisted but after 55 days he succumbed and signed. He was later charged with espionage and terrorism. He was sentenced to death and had been in jail ever since.’