TEL AVIV – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party praised the gunmen who killed 24 people when they attacked an Israeli airport in 1972.
Three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by a Palestinian militant group carried out the terror attack in Israel’s airport using hand grenades and guns, killing eight Israelis and 16 foreign tourists.
A post on Fatah’s official Facebook page Wednesday came ahead of the anniversary of the attack.
“A thousand greetings to the Japanese fighter and comrade Kozo Okamoto, the hero of the Lod airport operation,” the post reads.
Accompanying it is a photo of the attack, showing pools of blood on the floor next to torn and scattered luggage. Next to it is a picture of Kozo Okamoto, the surviving terrorist of the attack who only served 13 years in prison. Fatah praised Okamoto as a “hero.”
Munir Jaghob, a Fatah media official, said, “We are proud of all the people who worked for the Palestinian cause.”
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) also reported that the numbers of victims cited in Fatah’s post were exaggerated to make it look like the Japanese terrorist killed more people than he did.
Breitbart Jerusalem has reported on several instances in which Fatah marked the anniversaries of attacks on Israelis by glorifying the terrorists responsible.