Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hosted the family of the terrorist Karim Younis at his compound in Ramallah on Monday, to mark the passing of Younis' mother several days ago.
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Younis and his cousin, Maher – Israeli Arabs from the Wadi Ara region – have been behind bars in Israel since 1983 for the murder of IDF soldier Avraham Brumberg in 1981, making them the longest-serving Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jail.
Each receives a monthly salary of NIS 12,000 ($3,266).
During the ceremonial meeting at the presidential compound, Abbas granted the family an honorary citation from the "State of Palestine." Several members of the Fatah Central Committee were also in attendance.
The mother, Sabiha Younis, was hailed as a "patriotic fighter," and Karim Younis was called the "great commander and hero." Abbas, for his part, expressed his hope that Younis would soon be released from Israeli jail.
The mother was granted the posthumous citation for "her ongoing struggle, suffering, steadfastness, and 40-year opposition to the occupation, which made her a symbol of the fight of the prisoners' families." A mourning tent was erected in her honor in Ramallah.
Abbas occasionally hosts relatives of terrorists who are jailed in Israel.
Last January, he warmly welcomed Latifa Abu Hamid, the mother of the terrorist Islam Abu Hamid, who killed IDF Staff Sgt. Ronen Lubarsky four years ago during a raid operation in the al-Am'ari refugee camp near Ramallah. Several others of her children were also sentenced to life in prison – one of them for the murder of Shin Bet agent Noam Cohen in 1994.
Abbas, it should be noted, has thus far refrained from condemning terrorist attacks beyond the Green Line and his denouncement of the latest attack in Elad was weakly worded.
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