Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization has declared Friday a “day of rage” and called on the Palestinian “fighters” to “defend” the Al-Aqsa mosque, the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported Thursday, quoted the Arabic-language site of the PA’s official WAFA news agency.
WAFA’s English site did not report the direct incitement for more violence.
“Fatah calls to its fighters and to the masses of the Palestinian people to aid the Al-Aqsa Mosque and occupied Jerusalem,” WAFA stated.
PMW also said that Fatah declared Friday as a “day of rage… to express the Palestinian people’s opposition to any attack on the holy places and foremost among them the Al-Aqsa Mosque… And to consider desecration of Al-Aqsa as a declaration of a religious war against the Palestinian people and the Arab Islamic nations.”
“Desecration” includes Jews ascending the Temple Mount.
Fatah also told Arabs of “celebrations” over the attempted murder of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick Wednesday night.
The party headed by Abbas called Rabbi Glick “despicable” and labeled the terrorist who shot him a “heroic Martyr,” PMW reported.
One poster uploaded by Fatah’s Jerusalem branch carried the phrasing, “Fatah’s Jerusalem branch accompanies its heroic Martyr to his wedding, Mutaz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi, who carried out the assassination attempt of Zionist rabbi Yehuda Glick.”
The same Fatah adviser who posed the incitement is the same person who earlier this month lauded the terrorists who killed a three-month-old American-Israeli baby.”
Abbas insisted on Wednesday that he is not calling for or urging violence, but PMW noted that Palestinian Authority television aired 25 times in the past two weeks “a clip of Abbas calling to ‘use all ways’ to prevent Jews from approaching the Temple Mount.’”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry still maintains that Abbas has renounced violence.