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PA blames ‘Israeli crimes’ for violence, calls terrorists ‘martyrs’

PA blames “colonial settlement practices, land annexation, home demolitions, raids, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, storming of al-Aqsa.”

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

The Palestinian Authority said on Saturday it holds Israel “fully responsible for the dangerous escalation” in violence, while failing to mention the two terror attacks in Jerusalem that killed seven people and wounded five more but referring to Palestinian terrorists as “martyrs.”

“The Palestinian leadership holds the Israeli occupation regime fully responsible for the dangerous escalation of the situation due to its crimes, which amounted to 31 martyrs in the course of the current month,” the PA’s Security Council said in a statement that was carried by the official WAFA news agency.

The first attack saw a Palestinian terrorist killing seven people, including children, as they were leaving Shabbat prayers at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov on Friday evening.

The second occurred the morning after, when a 13-year-old Palestinian terrorist opened fire on a father and son near the Old City of Jerusalem, severely injuring them.

The attacks came after Thursday’s IDF raid in the terror hotbed of Jenin, the deadliest in decades, in which eight Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and a civilian died.

The terrorists were planning a large-scale bombing attack against Israel. PIJ later launched a barrage of rockets into Israel from Gaza, and several dozen small-scale terror attacks took place on roads in Judea and Samaria on Thursday.The Palestinian Authority announced it would be suspending security cooperation with Israel as a result of the raid.

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The PA condemned Israel over “its colonial settlement practices, land annexation, home demolitions, raids, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, the desecration of Islamic and Christian holy sites, and storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque which will lead to further deterioration, threatening security and stability in the entire Middle East region.”

“The Palestinian leadership salutes our Palestinian people in all places of their presence for their steadfastness, peaceful popular resistance, and their adherence to their legitimate national rights and to the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of our Palestinian people, the leader of our struggle for freedom and independence,” the statement added.