Fatah leader: PA wanted and called for murderous Tel Aviv terror attack
The Tel Aviv murderer “implemented” PA leadership’s “decisions”
Fatah gloats it killed most Israelis: “No one has inflicted more loss of life on Israel than Fatah. When Fatah would set out to the battlefield, you would count hundreds of killed Israelis.”
Terrorist who murdered 3 “terrified Tel Aviv” – Fatah on official PA TV
Tel Aviv murderer “shook Tel Aviv” – moderator at event glorifying Tel Aviv murderer
A senior Fatah leader explained that the recent murder of civilians in Tel Aviv was precisely what the PA leadership wanted and had called for. He said that when Ra’ad Hazem murdered 3 in Tel Aviv and another terrorist, Ahmed Al-Sa’adi, shot at Israeli soldiers, they “implemented” plans and “decisions” made by the PLO, Fatah, and “the Palestinian leadership.”
This admission by Central Committee member and Commissioner for Arab and China Relations Abbas Zaki goes even beyond the glorification of the attack by different PLO factions, including Abbas’ Fatah Movement immediately after the attack. Palestinian Media Watch reported at the time that Abbas’ forced condemnation was insincere. Zaki’s statement reconfirms PMW’s report.
In addition to the admission of responsibility for calling for terror by the Fatah leader at an event in Jenin to honor terrorists, the moderator praised the murderer from Tel Aviv as “the heroic Martyrdom-seeker Ra’ad Fathi Zidan Hazem, who shook Tel Aviv.” Zaki then praised terrorist Al-Sa’adi as “the heroic Martyr” and Ra’ad Hazem, who murdered the 3 civilians, as “true thunder, a legend, and a man worth 1,000 men,” who “imposed fear inside Israel.”
Zaki explained that their attacks were “the clearest way” to “implement” decisions made by Fatah and the PA leadership on a meeting on Feb. 7, 2022. PMW has shown that in meetings that day, the PA leadership called for more “popular resistance” – a PA euphemism for terror attacks like shootings, stabbings, and car rammings:
“The main topic of the [PLO] Central Council meeting yesterday was popular resistance. All the sessions, meetings, and conferences, whether of the Fatah Movement or of the other factions, and also His Honor President [Abbas called] in all his speeches to initiate popular resistance.”
[Official PA TV, Feb. 8, 2022]
Clearly, senior Fatah official Zaki was referring to these meetings and the “decisions” made there or at others like them, when he stated that the murder of 3 Israelis were the “implementation” and “translation” of the leadership’s decisions:
“You, the people of Jenin, are in practice, in the clearest way, implementing the [Fatah] Central Committee’s decisions and the Palestinian people’s consensus on Feb. 7 [2022] about cutting off the ties with Israel, cancelling the recognition of Israel, pursuing the settlers, and about standing proudly to let the world hear that the Palestinian will not surrender or kneel, and the people of Jenin are translating the Palestinian leadership’s decisions [into action].”
[Facebook page “Here Jenin,” April 10, 2022]
The following are longer excerpts of the moderator and Zaki’s statements at the event glorifying the murderers:
Event moderator: “Our people in Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, our Arab and Islamic nation… In the name of the families of the Martyrs, the Hazem family, relatives of the heroic Martyrdom-seeker Ra’ad Fathi Zidan Hazem (i.e., murderer of 3), who shook Tal Al-Rabia (i.e., Tel Aviv) and imposed a curfew… [I introduce] Fatah Central Committee member, brother, uniting national leader Abbas Zaki” …
Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki: “First, blessings to Jenin… This is the incredible city… You feel that its people is calling: “Death and not humiliation!” It is as if its people is saying: “I shall carry my soul in my palm and toss it into the abyss of destruction, and then either a life that will gladden friends, or a death that will enrage the enemies” … I know that Ahmed Nasser Al-Sa’adi (i.e., terrorist) is the heroic Martyr who took revenge for [the death of] Ra’ad [Hazem], who was true thunder (i.e., “Ra’ad” means “thunder”), a legend, and he was a man worth 1,000 men. All the Arab armies may not bring a revival [like the one] caused by the fear that Ra’ad imposed inside Israel. Allah be praised, this is something from Allah… These masses will continue out of appreciation and honor for this lofty example of fighters… You, the people of Jenin, are in practice, in the clearest way, implementing the [Fatah] Central Committee’s decisions and the Palestinian people’s consensus on Feb. 7 [2022] about cutting off the ties with Israel, cancelling the recognition of Israel, pursuing the settlers, and about standing proudly to let the world hear that the Palestinian will not surrender or kneel, and the people of Jenin are translating the Palestinian leadership’s decisions [into action].”
[Facebook page “Here Jenin,” April 10, 2022]
Awdah TV, which is run by Fatah, broadcast a video praising the two murderers who carried out attacks in Tel Aviv recently, murdering 3 and 5 people respectively. For good measure, Fatah also added in praise for terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi who led the most lethal attack in Israel's history, killing 37 Israelis, among them 12 children. Having broadcast this terror glorification on TV, Fatah then circulated it even more widely via its willing tool Facebook. The video includes posters of the killers with words of praise:
Editor in Chief of the independent Palestinian news agency Ma’an and official PA TV host Nasser Al-Lahham: “No one has inflicted more loss of life on Israel than Fatah. When Fatah would set out to the battlefield, you would count hundreds of killed Israelis... Fatah took down 240 heads [in response to the killing of] Martyr Raed Al-Karmi. No one killed as many Israelis as Fatah.”
Text on posters glorifying terrorist murderers:
“Heroic Martyr Ra’ad Fathi Hazem
Who terrified Tel Aviv and imposed a curfew
Heroic Martyr Ra’ad Fathi Hazem, 29, from the Jenin refugee camp, carried out the heroic operation in Tel Aviv, in which 15killed or wounded settlers fell”“The only time that the Sayeret Matkal [Israeli] special forces went down to the streets of occupied Tal Al-Rabia (i.e., Tel Aviv) was in 1978, in order to come out against the General Kamal Adwan operation (i.e., the Coastal Road massacre) led by Martyr Dalal [Mughrabi] (sic., terror squad never reached Tel Aviv). And this is the second time (i.e., Israeli forces searched for terrorist Ra’ad Hazem following his killing of 3 in Tel Aviv).”
Posted text on Facebook: “This is the Fatah Movement”
[Facebook page of the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture, April 12, 2022]
The following is more information on the terrorist murderers glorified by Fatah:
Ra'ad Hazem - 28-year-old Palestinian terrorist and PA Security Forces member who shot and murdered 3 Israeli civilians - 27-year-olds Tomer Morad and Eytam Magini and 35-year-old Barak Lufan - and wounded 14 others when he opened fire on a crowded bar on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022. Hazem escaped the scene of the attack and was found hiding near a mosque in Jaffa by Israeli security forces several hours later. He opened fire on them and was killed in the ensuing shootout.
Diya Ahmed Hassan Hamarsheh - Palestinian terrorist and Fatah member who shot and murdered 5 people - Israeli civilians Rabbi Avishai Yehezkel and Ya'akov Yisrael Shalom, Israeli police officer Amir Khoury, and 2 foreign workers from Ukraine identified as Alexander and Dmitry - in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv on March 29, 2022. An Israeli police officer shot and killed Hamarsheh, ending the attack. Hamarsheh, from Ya'abad near Jenin, had been working in Israel illegally. He was imprisoned for 6 months in 2015 for dealing in illegal weapons and membership in a terror organization.
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.
Dalal Mughrabi – female Palestinian terrorist who led the most lethal terror attack in Israel’s history, known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978, when she and other Fatah terrorists hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Highway, murdering 37 civilians, 12 of them children, and wounding over 70.
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.
Raed Al-Karmi – Palestinian terrorist and senior Tanzim (Fatah terror faction) member responsible for the murder of 9 Israelis in several attacks: Etgar Zeituni and Motti Dayan on Jan. 23, 2001; Zvi Shelef on May 31, 2001; Danny Yehuda on June 18, 2001; Elie Na’aman on July 4, 2001; Dov Roseman on Aug. 26, 2001; soldier Yaniv Levy on Aug. 28, 2001; Israeli army officer Erez Merhavi on Sept. 6, 2001; and Hananya Ben Avraham on Oct. 5, 2001. Al-Karmi was killed by the Israeli army on Jan. 14, 2002.
Tal Al-Rabia is the Palestinians’ Arabic translation of Tel Aviv, to wrongly imply the existence of an Arab village of that name prior to Tel Aviv.
Ahmed Al-Sa’adi – Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who shot at Israeli security forces who were conducting a counter-terror operation in Jenin on April 9, 2022, following the murder of 3 in Tel Aviv on April 7, 2022 by terrorist Ra'ad Hazem from Jenin. Al-Sa’adi was killed in the ensuing shootout.
Sheikh Izz A-Din Al-Qassam was an influential Islamic preacher in British Mandate Palestine during the 1930s. He led a Muslim terror group. The Hamas terror wing is named after him – the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.
The following is a longer excerpt of the poem quoted by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki:
“I shall carry my soul in my palm and toss it into the abyss of destruction…
And then either a life that will gladden friends, or a death that will enrage the enemies.
By your life! I see my death, but I hasten my steps towards it…
By your life! This is the death of men.
And who asks for a noble death - here it is.”
The poem was taught to Palestinian 7-graders until 2017 ("Our Beautiful Language for 7th grade," section 1, p. 81, in use until 2017)