Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: World Economic Forum.

JNS.org – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a condolence letter to the family of Moatez Hijazi, the Islamic Jihad member who shot Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick last week in an attempted assassination. Hijazi was later killed in a shootout with Israeli police.

“It is with anger that I received news of the crime carried out by the killer terrorist gangs of the Israeli occupation army against your son Moatez Ibrahim Hijazi, who has gone to heaven as a martyr for the Palestinian people,” Abbas wrote.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “When we are trying to calm the situation, Abu Mazen (Abbas) sends condolences over the death of one who tried to perpetrate a reprehensible murder. The time has come for the international community to condemn him for such actions.”

Hijazi, 32, had spent 11 years in an Israeli jail and was released in 2012.