Fatah Welcomes West Bank Shooting Attack That Left Three Israeli Soldiers Wounded

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement welcomed a shooting in the West Bank that left three Israeli soldiers wounded.

Fatah celebrated on its official Facebook page Monday night’s attack, in which a Palestinian policeman opened fire on an Israel Defense Forces post near the settlement of Beit El, north of Ramallah.

A similar attack last year, also perpetuated by a Palestinian policeman, left three Israeli soldiers wounded too.

In a post dedicated to the act, Fatah mentioned prominently that the perpetrator was a member. Featuring a picture of him with Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque in the background, the party wrote: “The martyr policeman, the son of the national liberation movement Fatah, a member of the Palestinian security services.”

The caption read: “The martyr policeman Mohammed Turkman, an officer in the Palestinian police special forces, the perpetrator of a shooting in a checkpoint near Beit El, where three Israeli soldiers were wounded.”

The comments on the post were overwhelmingly positive.

“God bless him and our heroic martyrs,” one wrote. “The Fatah heroes carry out an attack on the anniversary of the death of the martyr Yasser Arafat. The son of Fatah was fed up with being humiliated and chose martyrdom. Hail to our heroic martyrs!”

In a separate post, also featuring Turkman’s picture, Fatah wrote: “The Fatah chapter in Qabatiya [his hometown] laments the departure of their son, the heroic martyr Mohammed Turkman, the perpetrator of the attack in Beit El tonight.”

A reply read: “The security services sacrifice, as they always have, more heroic martyrs. The services are the defenders of the homeland.”

In a final post, Fatah updated that “The martyr is an officer in the Palestinian police’s security unit, a resident of Qabatiya in the Jenin region, in the north of the occupied West Bank.”