The Palestinian Authority on Monday condemned the “Islamic State” (IS) group over its terrorism, but also took advantage of the situation to take a jab at Israel.
A statement from the PA’s foreign ministry quoted by the Ma’an news agency hinted that Israel’s actions should also be treated as terrorism.
According to the statement, the ministry condemned the Islamic State's "ugly terrorism."
It said the PA condemns all forms of terror whether committed by groups or countries, and condemned IS in particular for targeting journalists and innocents.
“The terrorism centered in Syria and Iraq is shading the whole region and the world and is known by different names: ISIS, the Al-Nusra Front and others,” the statement said, according to Ma’an.
Then, however, the statement went on to say that there are other names for terrorism including “occupation, settlements, extremist settlers acts; such as those who burned teen Mohammed Khdeir to death.”
The statement made no mention of Hamas’s terror acts against Israelis, even though a leading member of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party recently compared Hamas's methods of executing and brutalizing its political opponents in Gaza to the gruesome executions carried out by IS.
In an interview with the Palestinian Authority's official TV station, Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi expressed his anger over a string of executions and shootings of Fatah members in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, and said the "unity deal" between Hamas and the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority was "a mistake."