Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya called on more Palestinian Authority (PA) Security Force members to follow the example of Amjad Abu-Omar, the terrorist who conducted a shooting attack adjacent to Bet El in Samaria on Sunday.

Abu-Omar, a member of the PA Security Forces and formerly the personal bodyguard to the PA’s Attorney General, shot three IDF soldiers wounding two of them seriously and one lightly before being shot dead by other soldiers.

“Today Amjad Abu-Omar went out (to conduct an attack) without taking into account his connection to the Palestinian Authority which was granted funds in order to brainwash those who love Palestine, and here today Amjad comes and says (to them) you failed,” said al-Hayya.

The Hamas leader said the PA policeman’s actions were “a message to all those in the Security Forces, this is your role model and you – all those who are free and zealous – need to act in this manner.”

A statement published by the Hamas movement after the attack read: “the brave act of the martyr Amjad Abu-Omar is a natural response to the execution crimes of the Israeli occupation, in particular since the Al-Quds Intifada (i.e. the current terror wave – ed.). …This is proof that there are nationalist activists in the (PA) Security Forces who oppose the policy of security cooperation with the Israeli occupation.”

The PA and its Security Forces were created in the 1994 Oslo Accords in which Israel supplied them with weapons. The Accords led to the 2000 Second Intifada or Oslo War, in which over 1,000 Israelis were murdered; PA officials later bragged that 70% of the attacks were conducted by PA Security Force members.

Attacks by PA officers have been increasing of late. Last week, Israeli security forces revealed that an officer in the PA intelligence agency had helped two terrorists carry out a shooting against IDF forces.

In December, another PA intelligence officer carried out a shooting attack just a few miles south of the site of Sunday’s shooting near Bet El. Mazen Hassan Orebeih shot and wounded two Israelis near the Hizme checkpoint to Jerusalem, before being shot dead himself.