Kozo Okamoto, center-top, upon release
Kozo Okamoto, center-top, upon releaseReuters

The Palestinian Authority (PA)'s official Fatah party celebrated the murder of 24 people on its official Facebook page earlier this month, in a post glorifying the 1972 bombing of Israel's Lod airport, Palestinian Media Watch reports Wednesday. 

70 people were also wounded during the May 30, 1972 bombing, in which three members of the Japanese Red Army shot at passengers and threw hand grenades. Of the 24 dead, 8 were Israelis; 16 were foreign tourists. 

Takeshi Okudaira, Yasuyuki Yasuda and Kozo Okamoto had been recruited by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a known terror group, for the job.

Okudaira and Yasuda were killed during the attack, but Okamoto was arrested and sentenced to 3 life sentences. He was later released in the Jibril Agreement in May 1985, after only 13 years of imprisonment; in that agreement, Israel released 1,150 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for three IDF soldiers kidnapped by the PFLP. 

Posting a photo from the attack, showing pools of blood on the floor next to torn and scattered luggage, Fatah sent "greetings" to the surviving "hero" - Okamoto. 

"44 years since the airport operation (26 killed and 80 injured) [higher numbers in the original -Ed.]," Fatah said, in comments translated by the watchdog group. "A thousand greetings to the Japanese fighter and friend Kozo Okamoto, the hero of the Lod airport operation, May 30, 1972."

The PA glorifies terror on a regular basis, both on social media and in its towns and official media.