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Arab Knesset member: Eliminated terrorists are ‘martyrs’

Ahmad Tibi asked God to “have mercy on the martyrs,” referring to the Al-Aqsa Brigades-affiliated gunmen.

By World Israel News Staff

Arab Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi slammed the IDF for killing three terrorists who repeatedly fired at troops and civilians in the Shechem (Nablus) area of Samaria, framing the Israeli government’s elimination of the Al-Aqsa Brigade gunmen as an unlawful execution.

“These assassinations and these executions are an act of terrorism according to international law,” Tibi said in a statement immediately after news of the military operation. “Only the end of the occupation will end the violence.”

In a Knesset address later in the day, Tibi criticized Israel for “executing” the men. He concluded his statement by asking God to have “mercy on the martyrs,” referring to the terrorists.

An incendiary statement from Tibi’s Joint List party called the shootings “a crime against the Palestinian people.”

MK Ofer Kassif, the only Jewish member of the Joint List, called the killings “cowardly” and accused the Israeli government of acting like a “mafia.”

Tibi has a long history of anti-Israel remarks. On International Holocaust Day in January 2022, he took to the Knesset plenum to compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

Earlier in January, Tibi visited a hunger-striking Islamic Jihad prisoner in an Israeli hospital.

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Tibi, who was a physician before becoming a lawmaker, posted a video of himself patting prisoner Abu Hawash’s arms and back and appeared to be checking his level of consciousness.

“We came out of great concern” for Abu Hawash’s health, Tibi wrote in an Arabic Facebook post, adding that he was “in talks” to see the terrorist released.

“We want him to be alive and free, at home with his family and children,” he wrote.

When Tibi was sworn into the Knesset in June 2021, he refused to pledge to serve the citizens of the State of Israel, as is standard for lawmakers. Rather, he said he would “pledge to fight the occupation” and “apartheid.”

Matan Peleg, chairman of right-wing NGO Im Tirtzu, said in a statement that Tibi should not be serving as a lawmaker in Israel

“Ahmad Tibi, your place in the parliament of Gaza, not in Israel,” Peleg stated.

“We will demand his disqualification in the [elections for the] next Knesset, there are no more excuses. We call on all Knesset members to contact the Attorney General, to immediately open a criminal investigation into [TIbi for] supporting terrorism and identifying with an armed struggle against the State of Israel.”