Fatah claims the shooting of Yehuda Glick

Abbas’s aide was preempted last Thursday by Adnan Ghaith, director of the Jerusalem branch of Abbas’s Fatah faction.

In his comments posted in the Quds New Network website a day after the shooting and translated by PMW, Ghaith said “the attempted assassination of Rabbi Glick today was merely a natural reaction to the crimes the occupation is committing against the city and its residents.”

Ghaith claimed the terror attack, as did Islamic Jihad, saying “the martyr Mu’taz Hijazi, who carried out the assassination attempt was a member of Fatah and one of its activists…we in Fatah are not ashamed to take responsibility for the heroic act he carried out today, for it was a natural reaction to the occupation’s crimes against Jerusalem and its holy places.”

The various comments come as outrage has grown over Abbas’s letter to the family of Hijazi, who after shooting Glick was killed in a gun battle with police.

“We received with anger the announcement about the despicable crime perpetrated by the gangs of killing and terror in the Israeli occupation army, against the son, Muataz Ibrahim Hijazi, who rose to the heavens as a martyr for the defense of the rights of the Palestinian nation and the holy places,” wrote Abbas.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) have all slammed the letter, calling for the world to criticize Abbas for his support of terrorism.