Abbas praises Arafat and terrorist murderers as "heroic Martyrs who sacrificed for Allah and for the liberation of Palestine," Palestinians "continue their path"

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "[Arafat], may Allah have mercy on him, and have mercy on his colleagues and comrades who began and ended with him, but whose struggle will not end… Their memory is still fresh in everyone’s hearts. These martyrs, these commanders, beginning with Abu Jihad, and ending with Abu Said and Abu Iyad – all of the heroic Martyrs who have died for Allah, who sacrificed for Allah and the Palestinian cause. These Martyrs… have died in their thousands for just one goal, which is the liberation of Palestine – and we are still continuing on their path."
 

Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.

Abu Jihad (Khalil Al-Wazir) - was a founder of Fatah and deputy to Yasser Arafat. He headed the PLO terror organization's military wing and also planned many deadly Fatah terror attacks in the 1960’s - 1980’s. These attacks, in which a total of 125 Israelis were murdered, included the most lethal in Israeli history - the hijacking of a bus and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children.

Khaled Al-Hassan (Abu Said) - was a co-founder of Fatah and a close adviser to Yasser Arafat. Al-Hassan served as a PLO Executive Committee member and later as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Palestinian National Council. Al-Hassan died of cancer on Oct. 8, 1994.

Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf) - PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s deputy, one of the founders of Fatah, and head of the terror organization Black September, a secret branch of Fatah. Attacks he planned include the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (Sept. 5, 1972) and the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan (March 1, 1973). It is commonly assumed that his assassin, a former Fatah bodyguard, was sent by the Abu Nidal Organization, a rival Palestinian faction.