AL-QUDS
By Abdel-Raouf Arnaout
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the Israeli government was "disappointed" by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas' failure to condemn Tuesday's killing of an Israeli citizen near the border with the Gaza Strip.
"Terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in recent days are a direct result of the incitement and hatred promoted by Palestinian schools and media," Ofir Gendelman,Netanyahu's spokesman for Arab media, told Anadolu Agency.
"We're disappointed that Palestinian President Abbas has so far failed to condemn terrorist attacks against our citizens, as a partner in peace talks should," he added.
On Tuesday, an Israeli citizen was killed in cross-border fire from the neighboring Gaza Strip. The man had been working on the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel when he was shot, Israel Radio reported.
The worker had been repairing the fence, which was damaged by a recent storm that swept through the region, Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported on its website.
Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, for his part, blamed the PA for the recent escalation in violence, accusing it of inciting violence against Israeli citizens.
"If terrorism continues, there will be no quiet on the Palestinian side [of the border]," Bennett told Israel Radio.
He added that the PA had encouraged what he described as a "culture of incitement" by naming public squares in Ramallah after suicide bombers and offering state-sponsored stipends and benefits to those he called "convicted terrorists" jailed by Israel.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu said that his country would "not ignore" the Israeli man's death.
Bennett said the recent wave of "terrorist attacks" had been triggered by the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, adding that last year had been the quietest in 35 years – precisely because there had been no peace talks between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
AA could not obtain an immediate comment from Abbas' office.
Abbas, however, has repeatedly rejected Israel's claims that the PA incites the killing of Israeli citizens. He recently called for reviving a now-defunct trilateral Palestinian-US-Israeli committee tasked with monitoring alleged incitement, but said that Israel had turned down the proposal.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
