Mahmoud Abbas condemns recent violence ‘for which both sides are paying a price’

The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas releases a statement condemning the recent violence in the West Bank, which spiked this morning with a shooting attack outside the Givat Assaf outpost that left two dead.

“In response to the ongoing events in the West Bank, the presidency said that the climate created by the policy of repeated raids into cities, incitement against the president and the absence of horizons for peace is what led to this unacceptable spate of violence, which we condemn and reject, and for which the two sides are paying a price.”

The statement referred to the recent raids by Israeli security forces in Ramallah in pursuit of the terror cell behind the drive-by shooting attack outside the Ofra settlement at the beginning of the week as well as to the subsequent poster campaign started by a far-right Israeli group which calls for Abbas’s assassination.

— with Adam Rasgon