Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been caught lying, claiming in a speech on Wednesday that 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra was “executed” by Israeli security forces, despite irrefutable proof the boy is alive.
Manasra and his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan, stabbed two Israelis, a 25-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy, in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev on Monday. The Israeli boy was critically injured by Manasra in the attack. Hassan was shot and killed while attacking security forces but Manasra was hit by a car while he was fleeing the scene. Security camera videos clearly show the two Arab boys running through the neighborhood, brandishing knives, and then show segments of the attack itself.
In a televised address Wednesday night, PA President Abbas held up a still image of Manasra, decrying “Israeli aggression”.
“We will not submit to the logic of overwhelming force,” Mr. Abbas said in his address, “the policies of occupation and aggression practiced by the Israeli government, and a herd of its settlers, who practice terrorism against our people and our holy sites, our homes and our trees, executing our children in cold blood, as they did with this child, Ahmad Manasra, and other children in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine.”
Abbas’ cry was taken up by sources in the Arab media, and some Western sources as well.
This PA announcement was despite Israeli government officials distributing a statement on Tuesday that Manasra was in stable condition in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. On Thursday, a photo was published in Israeli media showing the boy in the hospital, fully conscious, and a YouTube video confirmed this.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Abbas’ speech at a special session of the Knesset.
“I wish to say to the President of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen: Stop lying, stop your incitement. The false and inflammatory incitement against us continues. An Arab boy critically wounds a Jewish boy, and after the security forces stop him so that he cannot continue with his stabbing spree, he is turned into a martyr who was supposedly executed, having done no wrong,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Well, first of all, he is not dead, he is alive. Second, he was not executed, he attempted to execute. He attempted to kill and execute, but your spokesperson announces the complete opposite in a distorted and outrageous statement.”
Manasra has admitted to Israeli police that he committed the stabbings, claiming that his cousin convinced him and brought the knives, and, “I went there to stab Jews”.
