Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: World Economic Forum.

JNS.org – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas described Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza as “genocide” during an address on Wednesday, and refrained from condemning the ongoing rocket attacks on the Jewish state that prompted the operation.

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, Abbas also compared the recent murder of Palestinian teen Mohammad Abu Khudair to the Holocaust. The suspects Israel arrested in connection with that murder are Jewish.

“What shall we say about Abu Khudair? Shall we mention Auschwitz again?” Abbas said.

He added, “What is happening now is a war against the Palestinian people as a whole, not just against the resistance groups. We know that Israel is not defending itself, it is defending its pet project—the settlements.”