PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah, has himself condemned the attack.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party repeatedly hailed the terrorist who murdered three Israelis last month as a hero, according to Palestinian Media Watch.
A few hours after 37-year-old Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal shot dead three Israeli security guards outside of the Har Adar settlementnear Jerusalem on September 26, Fatah honored him by posting his picture on its official Facebook page, referring to the attack as
“an operation” and the murderer a “martyr.”
“The one who carried out the operation in Jerusalem (sic., Har Adar) is Martyr (Shahid) Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal,” the post read.
Fatah has since distributed a poster glorifying Jamal.
Two days after the murders, Abbas himself condemned the attack through his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeinah.
“The president’s permanent position is to condemn all acts of violence including this operation,” Rudeinah told official PA radio in response to a question about Abbas’s position on the Har Adar attack.
The attack took place at the back end of the settlement, called the Biddu gate, bordering a Palestinian village of the same name. Approximately 200 Palestinian laborers cross daily through the gate and into Har Adar, as did Jamal, who had a work permit for settlements in the West Bank.
Jamal was well-known and had worked privately for a number of families in Har Adar as a cleaner prior to the attack.
Hamas, Fatah’s chief rival, also praised the attack immediately after it happened. The two groups held reconciliation talks in Gaza last week.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post