Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday night slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the continued transfer of Qatari funds to Hamas in Gaza. “Netanyahu personally transfers funds to Hamas in Gaza to carry out attacks in the West Bank, and we are the ones who pay the price,” Abbas said.
By “paying the price,” Abbas meant that the IDF has laid siege on much of the PA as it hunts down Hamas terrorists who are out to murder Israelis.
Abbas spoke at a meeting of the PLO leadership in Ramallah, where he announced the dissolution of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), following a ruling of the Palestinian Constitutional Court, which also declared parliamentary elections in the PA in six months.
However, Abbas defended Hamas saying he would not agree to accuse his rivals of being a terrorist organization.
“Despite everything, they are part of the Palestinian people,” he said. “When there was an American proposal to define the organization’s members as terrorists, the Palestinian Authority objected.”
He turned off their electric power, leaving more than a million Gazans in the dark and without a working sewer system, but as Allah is his witness, Chairman Abbas won’t call them terrorists.
In Judea and Samaria, the IDF manhunt continued after the cell that carried out the fatal attack in Givat Assaf, in which two Haredi soldiers were murdered.
Also, on Friday, four rioters were killed in clashes with IDF forces at the Gaza border. At least 40 were injured.
Last Sunday, a major Hamas celebration in Hebron, marking the terror group’s 31st anniversary, was dispersed by PA security forces, as it appears as though the event would seal control of the city in the hands of Hamas. Over the week that has passed since, cooperation has been renewed between the PA security and the IDF.