‘3 Martyrs for 3 Murdered Israelis – This is a Great Thing,’ Says Senior Palestinian Official

“Three Martyrs for three [murdered] Israelis. This is a great thing,” boasted Fatah official Abbas Zaki.

By: Palestinian Media Watch

Earlier this month, a terrorist shot and murdered two IDF soldiers and seriously wounded a soldier and a young woman in a shooting attack next to Givat Asaf, just north of Jerusalem. The terrorist fled and has not been apprehended.

Responding to these murders, senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki said it was “a great thing.” Applying a twisted logic, Zaki indicated that this terrorist shooting was legitimate “blood vengeance” for Palestinians killed by Israel.

The terrorist who carried out the Givat Asaf attack is the brother of Saleh Barghouti, 29, a terrorist who carried out the Ofra attack a week before in which he shot and wounded seven Israelis. Saleh was shot and killed by IDF forces several days after the attack. Both are sons of Hamas leader Omar Barghouti.

Zaki did not differentiate between deaths of innocent Israelis targeted by terrorists and the deaths of the terrorists who had murdered Israelis and were killed during Israel’s attempt to capture them.

“We are proudly following the events in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). The young Palestinians are avenging a blood vengeance – three Martyrs (Shahids) for three Israelis. This is a great thing,” SHMS News Agency quoted him as saying earlier this month.

The “three Martyrs” are the terrorists Ashraf Na’alwa, who murdered two of his Israeli co-workers in Barkan in October; Barghouti who murdered a baby and wounded seven others near Ofra; and possibly terrorist Majdi Mteir, who was killed while committing a stabbing attack. Na’alwa and Barghouti were killed while resisting arrest.

The three Israeli victims are likely the baby Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran, who died three days after he was born prematurely by emergency C-section after his mother was shot and critically wounded, and the two victims from Givat Asaf.

Lip Service

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) documented that Fatah has glorified these murderers, and the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to its policy, has presented them as victims of “Israeli executions.”

The PA issued a generic condemnation of the “unacceptable wave of violence,” for which it blamed Israel. The PA took no responsibility for the terror attacks despite its constant glorification of terror and Fatah’s promotion of violence, nor did it specifically condemn the murder of Israelis.

“In response to the events taking place in the West Bank, the [PA] Presidential Office said in a statement that the atmosphere that has been created by the policy of recurring [Israeli] invasions of the [Palestinian] cities, the incitement against His Honor [PA] President [Mahmoud Abbas], and the lack of a prospect of peace is what has led to this unacceptable wave of violence, which we condemn and reject, and the price of which the two sides are paying,” WAFA, the official PA news agency, reported.

In the past, when PA leaders condemned the same terror that they support and reward financially, Palestinian officials stressed in Arabic that the “condemnations” were insincere but necessary for the PA’s image internationally.