The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee on Thursday condemned the horrific murder of 12-year-old Abdullah Issa, a Palestinian refugee in Syria, demanding immediate international intervention to bring those behind the beheading to justice.
Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, issued a press release in which he addressed a video circulating on social media on Tuesday in which rebel fighters behead a boy after capturing him north of Syria’s second city, Aleppo, where there has been fighting between rebels and government forces.
US Backed 'Moderate' Rebels Film Themselves Beheading a Boy Near Aleppo https://t.co/UEgrzNCAuC#Syria pic.twitter.com/qiiOT6Gh7O
— Ian56 (@Ian56789) July 20, 2016
Erekat condemned the “cowardly and cruel action” committed by the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, an independent insurgent groups involved in the Syrian Civil War.
He called on the international community and the United Nations to investigate the reason for the beheading and to provide the Palestinian people, in Palestine and refugee camps around the world, with protection, saying, “It is time for the world to speak up and take on measures to end the terrorist actions against our people.”
The Palestinian leadership announced that it is agrees with the view of several Arab and international bodies to bring those responsible for the heinous crime to justice using all possible legal ways.
Saeb Erekat condemns killing of Palestinian child in Syria, and en passant calls on world to "end the occupation." https://t.co/Nfgvq8SPkP
— Raphael Ahren (@RaphaelAhren) July 22, 2016
Anwar Abdul Hadi, head of the political department at the PLO office in Damascus, condemned the crime and told WAFA, “This is a heinous crime committed by a terrorist group against a boy who has Thalassemia and was abducted from a hospital.”
Erekat and Abdul Hadi drew a similarity between the murder of Issa, the murder of Mohammad Abu Khudeir who was burned alive by Israeli settlers in Jerusalem, and 12-year-old Mohammad al-Durrah who was killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip.
Following the beheading, Nour al-Din al-Zenki issued a statement condemning what is described as a “violation” that was “an individual mistake, that does not represent the general policy of the group”.
#Palestine | Preliminary reports show that Mohammad Abu Khudeir was burnt alive http://t.co/G6uNDAdOkl via @pnnenglish
— Haitham Sabbah ☄ (@sabbah) July 5, 2014
According to the statement, the group arrested those who carried out this violation and handed them over to a judicial committee for investigation.
(WAFA, PC)
