by WorldTribune Staff, June 9, 2016
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed “shock” after Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip celebrated the June 8 terror attacks that left four dead at a popular shopping and restaurant district in Tel Aviv.
“The Secretary-General is shocked that the leaders of Hamas have chosen to welcome this attack and some have chosen to celebrate it. He calls upon the Palestinian leadership to live up to their responsibility to stand firmly against violence and the incitement that fuels it,” said a statement issued on behalf of the UN chief’s spokesperson.
Two Palestinian gunmen are in custody after the attacks at two locations in Sarona Market.
The Israeli army sealed off the village of Yatta, south of Hebron, where the two assailants lived. Palestinian media identified the two, said to be cousins, as Muhammad Ahmad Moussa Makhamreh and Khalid Muhammad Moussa Makhamreh.
Speaking at the site of the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had yet to hear any condolences from the Palestinians and their leadership.
“Instead we hear of them celebrating in Gaza and the West Bank, which reminds us of what we are up against,” he said.
Israel on June 9 announced the deployment of additional troops in the West Bank and said it was freezing about 83,000 permits allowing Palestinians to enter the country during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Media reports said that Palestinians in Tulkarem were seen handing out candy to passing cars in celebration of the attack, while senior Hamas terrorist and the deputy leader of the group, Ismail Haniyeh, praised the terrorists as “heroes” on his Twitter account.
Meanwhile, leftist media outlets in the U.S. continued their trendof portrayig Palestinians as anything other than the victims of Israeli violence.
MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin repeatedly suggested “that the fact that Israel has a right-wing government and was enacting security measures to prevent attacks, somehow justified attacks on Israeli civilians,” according to the Honest Reporting media watchdog.
Honest Reporting noted that MSNBC’s coverage “was all the more astonishing in that while it inexplicably focused on supposed Israeli ‘extremism’, nothing was mentioned vis-a-vis the blatant extremism and support for such attacks against civilians by Palestinians – including open celebrations on the streets of Gaza, eastern Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority-ruled cities.”
CNN inspired outrage with its headline when it put the word “terrorists” in quotations on its Facebook page before swiftly removing the quotations and issuing an apology via Twitter.
The British news network SKY also neglected to use the word “terror” or “terrorism” in their report of the attack at Sarona.
The BBC’s headline “Tel Aviv shooting: Three killed in attack in shopping centre attack” was also void of the keywords.
The Telegraph as well as the Guardian also labeled the terror attack as “shooting” incidences in their headlines.