TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Minister of Justice dismissed Israel trying to stop terrorist stabbings as “baseless excuses” for what he termed the “murder” and “summary executions” of “unarmed” Palestinians following nine terror attacks in five days.
Israel’s response to the spike in terror attacks is “a one-sided campaign against our people, and is intensifying the crimes of murder and aggression. In less than a week, it has committed many crimes of summary executions,” Justice Minister Ali Abu Diyak is quoted as saying by the official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA.
According to the report translated by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch, Abu Diyak said “the occupation is using the excuse that the [perpetrators] tried to stab or throw rocks at the occupation soldiers, and other baseless excuses.”
One of the “unarmed citizens” was a Jordanian national who attempted to stab a group of police officers at the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released footage of the attack in which the terrorist, Saeed Amro, is seen brandishing a knife in each hand after Jordan slammed the subsequent killing of Amro by Israeli forces as “barbaric,” with officials in Amman saying they were in doubt as to whether the terrorist committed the attack at all.
Palestinian Authority TV, the voice of the PA, nevertheless said Amro’s death was a “targeted” killing to deter other Arabs from “defending Jerusalem and Palestine and the besieged Palestinian people that lives under the occupation.”
A PA official interviewed on the program backed up this assessment, saying the “occupation” is bent on the “hijacking of Jerusalem, and an attempt to alter the nature” of the holy city in order to make Arabs believe “there is a permanent danger in Jerusalem.”
Likewise, PA TV News stated Israel had “executed” the terrorist “under the pretext that he tried to carry out a stabbing operation,” PMW reported.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter of condolence to Amro’s family, praising him as a “a martyr who watered the pure earth of Palestine with his blood.”
A day later, Hatem Al-Shaloudi was caught on a security camera withdrawing a blade and stabbing an Israeli soldier.
PA TV once again claimed Israel had “executed” the terrorist “under the pretext that he had stabbed a soldier.”
The Palestinian Authority daily, Al Hayat Al Jadida, expressed doubt about Israel’s depiction of the attack, writing: “The occupation army claimed, as usual, that young Al-Shaloudi stabbed a soldier at Tel Rumeida.”
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