“Long live our people’s unity and long live the free hero,” read the post from the PA ruling party, referring to the terrorist.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party praised the terrorist who shot seven people in Jerusalem overnight Saturday.
“Praise to the one whose rifle only speaks against his enemy,” read a post from the official Fatah party Facebook page, translated from Arabic by Palestinian Media Watch.
“Long live our people’s unity and long live the free hero,” the post continued, referring to the attack’s perpetrator, 26-year-old Amir Sidawi, who surrendered to Israeli police on Sunday morning.
“Praise to the rifle muzzles, our people will fight the occupation with every kind of resistance,” read a follow-up post by Fatah. “Save your bullets and use them against the occupation, only the occupation!”
Gaza-based Hamas terror group expressed similar sentiments around the terror attack, releasing a statement calling Sidawi “heroic and brave.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said in a Twitter statement that he was “deeply saddened” to learn that U.S. citizens were among the victims, but he made no comment on the PA’s endorsement of violence.
Fatah’s praise for the terrorist who attacked unarmed civilians, including a family of American Jewish tourists, is significant, as the Biden administration is in close contact with the PA.
During Biden’s July visit to Israel and the region, Abbas told the president that he “extends my hand to the leaders of Israel to make peace.”
Abbas also pressed Biden to remove the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from the U.S.’s list of designated terrorist organizations.
“We are not terrorists,” he told Biden.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a member of the PLO, issued its own statement on Sunday morning, praising the Jerusalem attack targeting unarmed Jewish civilians.
The “operation was a natural response by our people to the occupation’s escalating crimes,” a PFLP representative told Palestinian news agency Ma’an.