20 November 2015 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Five more innocent people were mercilessly slaughtered yesterday by Islamic terrorists – this time in Israel. On Thursday afternoon – Israel-time – a knife-wielding Palestinian carried out a stabbing spree at a synagogue in downtown Tel Aviv. Two Israeli civilians – 51-year-old Reuven Avraham and 32-year-old Aaron Yesiav, were killed and three others wounded. Witnesses to the attack attested to Aaron Yesiav’s courage, relating how he shielded other synagogue worshipers with his body.
Later that same day, another Palestinian man – this time armed with an automatic weapon – used his car to create a traffic jam near the Gush Etzion junction south of Jerusalem and then opened fire on nearby vehicles. In this attack another three innocents were murdered, 49-year-old Israeli father of four Ya’akov Don, 18 year-old American yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz and 40-year-old Palestinian Shadi Arafa.
It is utterly unsurprising that Hamas has praised these acts of wanton murder as “heroic”. But we should also not forget that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 10th year of his four-year elected term of office, recently declared on Palestinian government TV:
“We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”
ZFA President Danny Lamm said: “terrorism is terrorism, regardless of whether perpetrated in Israel or in France. And in light of the myriad drops of blood spilled by Palestinian terrorists over the past 24-hours it’s long past time that President Abbas should be held to account for his incitement to violence.”
The ZFA mourns all the victims of these disgraceful attacks, regardless of their nationality or religious persuasion. May their memories be blessed.
