Israeli officials on Wednesday night tore into Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ claims that Israel executed a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmed Manasra, noting that the child was not dead and castigating the PA chief’s failure to note that the boy had stabbed and wounded a young Israeli in an unprovoked terror attack before being shot.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading “lies and incitement” in his speech.
“The boy he is referring to is alive and hospitalized in Hadassah (hospital) after stabbing an Israeli child who was riding his bicycle,” the PMO said in a statement.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said the claims “sanction (the actions of) murderers and terrorists, some of them children, to go and carry out attacks. The blood of our wounded and murdered citizens is on his hands.”
Netanyahu’s main opposition party in the Knesset, the Zionist Union, called Abbas’s claims “grave, defamatory statements that distort reality, border on utter irresponsibility and only serve to further fan the flames of hopelessness and hatred in the region.”
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid called the speech “a miserable performance showing lack of leadership.”
“Instead of calming the situation and condemning the despicable terrorists who are trying to murder innocent Israelis, Abbas chose to mount a miserable performance showing lack of leadership and cowardice of the lowest level,” he said. “Terrorists should know that Israel will stand strong and fight terrorism anywhere, anytime and with great force. Whoever tries to harm us — their blood is upon their heads.”
Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev said Abbas’s claims proved he was “the head of the snake and leader and tutor of killers.”
Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin called Abbas’s speech “blood libel” and said his words proved that PA incitement was behind the recent wave of civil unrest and terrorism.
The PA president made the accusations during a speech broadcast live on Palestinian television, his first major address since the start of the wave of terror attacks against Israelis and spiraling violence between the sides.
Read the full article at Times of Israel
