The Palestinian Authority government on Monday condemned IDF “military violence,” while sidestepping the terror attacks that had preceeded and provoked the army response. An English-language report published by the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency, said the PA cabinet in Ramallah condemned the killing of four PA teens “in less than 24 hours by Israel forces” – without mentioning the circumstances in which the youths died. Ma'an is aimed at the foreign press.
Two of the four were killed while participating in mob violence during a massive riot at the village of Iraq-Burin in Samaria, near Shechem. IDF soldiers, having failed to quell the riot with normal mob dispersal methods, fired rubber bullets at the crowd, hoping to end the escalating violence. The other two teens were killed while trying to attack IDF soldiers as they patrolled near a field next to the village of Awarta, also near Shechem. The soldiers were protecting the PA farmers as they plowed the field at the time, and the two teens, disguised as farmers, suddenly attempted to attack one of the soldiers on patrol with pitchforks.
No mention of Kassams
The PA cabinet also condemned “Israeli military strikes on the Gaza Strip” – without noting the fact that the strikes came in retaliation for Kassam rocket attacks fired by terrorists from Gaza at southern Israeli civilians nearly every day last week. A Thai worker was killed on Thursday when a Gaza terror missile struck the greenhouse inside which he was working in the Israeli border community of Netiv Ha’asara: his body was flown home to Thailand earlier this week.
The PA ministers warned that Israel’s “recent escalation in military violence endangered the Palestinian Authority’s achievements in the fields of security and stability,” the report claimed, adding, “The cabinet said the PA would not allow for a return to violence.”
Assuming the posture of a helpless victim brutalized by Israel, the PA appealed to the international community to “ensure an armed conflict does not erupt” by halting “intensified military action and settlement activity” by Israel. The ministers also called on Arab leaders at next week’s Arab League summit in Libya to “protect Jerusalem from Israel’s settlement enterprise,” find a way to end Israel’s blockade on Gaza and increase funding to the region.