Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas told Palestinians in a televised address earlier this week that Israel had “executed” a 13-year-old boy in “cold blood.” However, the boy in question is still alive in an Israeli hospital.
The teen was injured while attempting to stab two Israel Jews–one a child–to death in a Jerusalem neighborhood Monday. The attack was the latest in a series of knifings encouraged by Palestinian political and religious leaders.
At first, the Palestinian Authority denied that the 13-year-old was a terrorist. Israeli authorities then released video surveillance footage of the teen, Ahmed Manasra, and his cousin running down the street brandishing knives during the attack.
“‘Dead’ 13-year-old terrorist alive and well,” reported Israel’s Ynetnews.com.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading “lies and incitement,” the Times of Israel reports–though much of the Israeli security establishment still believes Abbas is a moderating influence.
On Thursday, the Jerusalem Post reports, the Palestine Liberation Organization published what it called a “full translation” of Abbas’s speech into English. The translation quotes Abbas as referring to “shooting of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Manasrah and other children from Jerusalem.
However, what Abbas had actually said in Arabic, the Post reports, were the words: “execution of our children in cold blood.”