Netanyahu is open to meeting with Abbas over recent violence
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he is “perfectly open” to meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying it could be “potentially useful” to halt a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Netanyahu’s comment came after he accused Abbas of inciting the violence.
He said Abbas made a false claim that Israel executed a young Palestinian boy who is recovering in an Israeli hospital after allegedly participating in a Jerusalem stabbing.
Discussions with Abbas “might stop the wave of incitement and false allegations against Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I’d be open to meeting with Arab leaders and the Palestinian leadership in order to stop this incitement and set the record straight.”
He said he spoke to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other leaders about meeting with Abbas.
Kerry is due to travel to the Middle East soon to try to calm the situation.
According to Israeli police, Ahmed Manasra, 13, and his 15-yearold cousin stabbed two Israelis, one of whom was also a 13-yearold boy, on Monday in Jerusalem.
A smartphone video that went viral showed Ahmed lying on the ground, bleeding from his head while an Israeli cursed at him.
In a speech that aired Wednesday on Palestinian TV, Abbas reportedly said Israel was engaged in the “execution of our children in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasra and other children in Jerusalem and other places.”
Thursday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization released a revised English version of the speech, which quotes Abbas as talking about the “shooting of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Manasra and other children from Jerusalem,” The Jerusalem Post reported. The newspaper said the Arabic version of the speech uses “execution” rather than “shooting.”
Asher Salmon, deputy director of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, said Thursday that Ahmed is in “light to moderate condition” and could be discharged from the hospital in a few days, the Israeli website Ynet reported. Officials released pho- tos purportedly of Ahmed.
According to Israeli police, the boy and his cousin Hassan Manasra stabbed a 24-year-old man and a 13-year-old Jewish Israeli boy riding his bike. Hassan was shot and killed. Ahmed was not shot but was hit in the head with clubs, suffering a severe head injury, Ynet reported.
The man who was stabbed is in stable but serious condition, and the 13-year-old is in stable condition after emergency surgery, The
Jerusalem Post reported. Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu’s spokesperson for Arab-language media, said Thursday, “Abbas intentionally lied about the boy because he wants a symbol to incite Palestinians to perpetrate more terrorists attacks,” The Jerusalem
Post reported. Eight Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians, and 31 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the past month, 14 of them identified by Israel as attackers.
After the U.S. State Department suggested that Israel might be using excessive force to deal with the attacks, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon accused Washington of “misreading ” the conflict and said shooting Palestinian attackers wielding knives was self-defense, Reuters reported Thursday.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called the United States’ remarks “foolish,” the news agency said.
The Israeli military said Thursday it will deploy 300 soldiers Sunday in the streets of Jerusalem to help police maintain order. The soldiers will help guard public transportation and the city’s main arteries.
The deployment is one of the steps implemented this week to beef up security. Israel has already sent thousands of additional police officers to Jerusalem and erected a series of checkpoints in Palestinian neighborhoods of the city.
Police plan to bar Muslim men under the age of 40 from entering the sensitive holy site in Jerusalem at the center of the recent violence for Friday prayers. Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police often erupt in the area, the Associated Press reported.