PA prime minister emphasizes he supports escaped terrorist fugitives
Headline: “Melhem: The news items that are being spread about the freedom prisoners are fabrications meant to weaken the national resilience”
“Official [PA] Government Spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said the publications in the Israeli media outlets that claimed that [PA] Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh refused to provide protection for the six heroic prisoners who achieved their freedom from Gilboa Prison (refers to escaped terrorists; see note below -Ed.) are media fabrications and lies that strive to weaken the national resilience and create rifts in the national consensus that was created by the unity around the six prisoners. This is because the prime minister praised their heroism and ability to break through the fortified Israeli security system, and this brought up the affairs of all the male and female prisoners and the need to work for [their] release.
In a statement yesterday, Thursday [Oct. 14, 2021], Melhem emphasized that ‘freedom is achieved and not given, and our Palestinian people is a wall of defense for our prisoner sons and a safe haven for them. Their yearning for freedom will not stop with the digging of the tunnel to achieve their right to freedom, and so too our call to release all our prisoner sons and prisoner daughters in the occupation’s prisons will not stop.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 15, 2021]