An Arab-Israeli Knesset member on Tuesday hailed five Palestinian terrorists as “our martyrs” after they were killed in an Israel Defense Forces raid overnight, saying they were to be “praised” for “resisting the occupation.”
Aida Touma-Sliman of the Arab majority Joint List party wrote on Facebook: “Nablus separates from our martyrs today. Our Palestinian nation bids farewell to its martyrs.”
“The more the occupation increases its crimes, the resistance escalates. An important lesson in the history of nations,” Touma-Sliman added.
She included a photo of the funeral of the gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The Lion’s Den terror group, a recent terrorist organization to emerge from Nablus, has claimed responsibility for several attacks over recent weeks, including the murder of IDF Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch earlier this month. The group was also behind a bomb plot at a gas station near the Jewish Kedumim settlement.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz slammed Touma-Sliman over her remarks.
“I’m ashamed of public representatives who support terrorists and are prepared to let them continue to spill the blood of Israeli citizens,” Gantz wrote on Twitter.
“MK Aida Touma-Sliman once again proves that her party cannot be included in a government or relied on in order to form one. Israel’s security comes before the formation of a coalition,” he added.
The Right-wing Religious Zionism-Otzma Yehudit leader, Bezalel Smotrich, said Israel “can’t fight terror if you establish a government with terror supporters!”
His would-be coalition partner, head of the Shas party Arye Deri, claimed that caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid will rely on alliances from “these terror supporters who praise ‘martyrs,’” come election time on Tuesday.
Likud MK Miki Zohar said Touma-Sliman’s remarks were proof that “the country needs to vote for the right-wing.”
Likud MK Nir Barkat shared her Facebook post, saying: “There is no room for terror supporters in the Israeli Knesset. It’s impossible to believe that there are those who are willing to sit together in a coalition with terrorist supporters.”
Touma-Sliman’s fellow Joint List MK Ofer Cassif, said he gave her his “full support” for expressing “the simple truth.”
“Where there is suppression, where there is occupation, there will be resistance,” Cassif wrote on Twitter. “The occupation is terror, and its supporters… should be judged in Israel, in Palestine, at The Hague and in the annals of history.”
Joint List head Ayman Odeh also expressed his support and said “attacks and incitement by the leaders of a country that is occupying another.”
It is unclear what country Odeh is referring to. To date, there is no Palestinian state.
“We will always stand strong against evil, supremacy and racism,” he added.
Four terrorists and the leader of the Lion’s Den terror group, Wadi al-Houh, were killed by Israeli security forces in Nablus overnight Monday.
Touma-Sliman has come under fire for praising terrorists in the past.
Last year, she bragged about meetings she had held in Ramallah with the six NGOs designated as terrorist groups by Israel, which she said “fight the great terror of the occupation.”
In December 2021, Touma-Sliman denounced Israeli forces for “executing” a Palestinian terrorist.
During her swearing-in at the Knesset last year, Touma-Sliman vowed to “fight against the occupation.”
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