Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Abbas’ Advisor on Islamic Affairs and Supreme Sharia Judge, delivered a sermon on Friday from the PA headquarters in Ramallah, in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas. He accused Hamas of deliberately encouraging civilians to endanger themselves: “You Palestinians, our people, go and die so that we’ll go to the TV and media with strong declarations.”

Al-Habbash claimed that the Palestinian population are not being fooled by Hamas anymore, and “sides with the PLO.”

“The Palestinian people… doesn’t care about those [Hamas] with ‘the emotional stories of heroism,’ those with the slogans of heroism – slogans that when you hear them, you think that the people saying them are inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque after they liberated it. And afterwards you discover that they’re only selling illusions, trading in suffering and blood, trading in victims, [saying]: ‘You Palestinians, our people, go and die so that we’ll go to the TV and media with strong declarations.’ These [Hamas] acts of ‘heroism’ don’t fool anyone anymore. The Palestinian people… sides with the PLO.”

[Official PA TV, April 6, 2018]

While Abbas’ advisor was criticizing Hamas for sending Palestinians to their death, Abbas’ Fatah Movement celebrated the participation of an infant in the Gaza demonstrations. Fatah posted a photo of a six-month-old baby who had been placed on a pile of tires. The tires would eventually be burned at the Gaza demonstrations:

Posted text: “A child no older than six months was among the participants in the demonstrations today (Friday) [April 6, 2018] and in the March of Return events on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip”

[Official Fatah Facebook page, April 6, 2018]