Abbas’s office walks back 13-year-old’s ‘execution’ charge

An official from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s office said Friday that the PA chief was misled before he accused Israelis of executing a Palestinian boy who is recovering from wounds he sustained while trying to stab Jews.

The statement by the unnamed official from Abbas’s office Friday came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of spreading “incitement and lies” by describing what happened to 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra in Jerusalem on October 12 as a cold-blooded execution.

Gal Berger, Israel Radio’s reporter on the Arab world, said that an official from Abbas’s office told him that Abbas “was given the incorrect information right before the speech as a last-minute addition.”

In the speech in Ramallah on Wednesday, Abbas spoke out against “aggression by Israel and its settlers, who commit terror against our people,” and who “execute our children in cold blood, as they did to the child Ahmed Manasra and other children in Jerusalem and elsewhere.”

Ahmad Manasra, one of two cousins who went on a stabbing spree in Jerusalem on October 12, 2015 is seen at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem on October 15, 2015. Manasra was hit by a car while fleeing from the scene of the attack. (Courtesy)

Ahmed Manasra and his 17-year-old cousin, Hassan, were filmed stabbing a 25-year-old man in Pisgat Zeev, a neighborhood located in northeastern Jerusalem, causing the man serious injuries before stabbing a second victim — a 13-year-old Jewish boy, in the neck.

Police officers shot and killed Hassan Manasra as he ran toward them wielding a knife. Ahmed Manasra was injured and taken to hospital in serious condition. His condition is stable, according to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.