While mosques and other public gatherings are proscribed due to pandemic restrictions, thousands of Palestinians attended a rally to celebrate the release of a terrorist responsible for the murder of at least six Israelis.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that, in contravention of Health Ministry guidelines, Fatah, the Party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, held a mass rally in Jenin last Tuesday night to celebrate the release of Nidal Turkeman. Turkeman was involved in a number of terror attacks, including the shooting and hand grenade attack against a Likud primaries polling station in Beit Shean in which 6 were murdered on Nov. 28, 2002. Turkeman served 17 years in prison and was released just before the rally.

“Fatah’s message to its own people is that honoring a terrorist involved in the murder of 6 Israelis takes priority over their own health,” PMW noted in the report.

While lamenting the violation of the coronavirus restrictions and  noting the guest of honor was greeted with “massive shooting in the air,” the Palestinian media emphasized that the murderer was a  “role-model of commitment and discipline.”

“Our heroic prisoners are the first to carefully implement the law, and the last who think to violate the order and precautionary and defensive measures, because they are a role-model of commitment and discipline,” WAFA, the official PA media reported.

The PLO was considered by the United States and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991