The Palestinian attacker who unleashed a stabbing spree in Israel nearly three months ago, killing an American tourist and wounding 11 others before police killed him, was a “martyr” in the eyes of Palestinian media.
(FOX)- The Palestinian Authority’s official TV network reported Saturday the attacker, Bashar Masalha, received a burial described as “a large national wedding befitting of martyrs” — a reference to the Islamic teaching that a martyr would marry 72 virgins in the afterlife.
The March 8 stabbing rampage in Tel Aviv killed Taylor Force, a 28-year-old West Point grad and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who was studying abroad in pursuit of his MBA. Israeli police were among the wounded.
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the Palestinian Authority’s official daily newspaper, called him a “martyr” on Saturday as well, Palestinian Media Watch reported. Just one day after the attack, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party labeled Masalha a “heroic martyr.”
Force, originally from Lubbock, Texas, was standing on a boardwalk when the killer stabbed him.
After Israel gave up the killer’s body, Masalha was buried in the West Bank village of Hajja, in a “cemetery for martyrs,” Palestinian TV reported.