Abbas Sorry It Took Israeli Child 2 Years To Die After Rock Attack

“If more effective and efficient methods and equipment were available, we would not still be here two years later discussing this death, and that is regrettable.”

Ramallah, February 18 – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed regret today over the death of Israeli four-year-old Adele Bitton, saying she should have died right away instead of languishing in hope for two years.

Adele was hit by a Palestinian stone-thrower in 2013 as the car her mother was driving came under attack on the Trans-Samaria Highway. She was hospitalized in critical condition. The preschooler succumbed yesterday to a lung infection following repeated rounds of rehabilitation and surgery, leading Abbas to apologize for subjecting her and society to the experience when the alternative of having her killed on the spot should have been an option.

“It is the Occupation that limits our ability, as a people, to take all necessary measures,” said Abbas in an address at the Muqata, his presidential compound. “If more effective and efficient methods and equipment were available, we would not still be here two years later discussing this death, and that is regrettable.”

Abbas vowed to work toward providing his people with the necessary resources. “Rocks are deadly, as we have seen multiple times,” he acknowledged. “But they are notoriously difficult to deploy properly, and we could have been spared this tragedy of waiting for a little girl to die if the stone-throwers had access to better weapons than simple projectiles. I promise to do all that is within my capacity to bring such capability to our people so that we do not have a recurrence of this unfortunate case.”

Stone-throwing incidents are regular occurrences across the areas disputed by Israel and the Palestinians, as the latter pelt Israeli motorists with rocks and occasional Molotov cocktails. Buses near and around Jerusalem’s Old City are targeted constantly, with Israelis sustaining injuries and damage almost daily, drawing out the impact of each incident instead of efficiently disposing of those Jews. Palestinian officials say they have attempted to upgrade their methods by various means, with little to show for their efforts.

“We could easily arrange for attacks of this nature to render their victims dead more or less immediately and avoid the drawn-out suspense, if we could streamline the distribution of the proper materials to the activists involved,” said Nabil Shaath. “This would be especially feasible if we ever did what we threaten to do approximately every two weeks, which is to cease security coordination with the IDF. Since Palestinian Authority security forces are more or less useless, their weapons could be transferred to those who would make good use of them, namely the youths hurling firebombs and rocks at Israelis.”

In addition to regret that Adele did not perish immediately, Palestinian officials expressed their dissatisfaction with the location of her funeral, which took place today in her home community in Samaria. “The burial outside a formal cemetery means our heroic activists will have to make a special effort to deface the grave, since it will require going out of the way,” said Shaath. “When we do finally expel the Jews from Palestine, we fully expect to do as every other Jew-expelling entity has done, and vandalize whatever Jewish graves we can find. That’s much more easily accomplished if the graves are concentrated in just a few places.”