US said to scold PA over death threats toward Palestinian-American Abbas critic
The US has raised concerns over death threats made against a well-known Palestinian-American activist critical of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a report said Tuesday.
Fadi Elsalameen, originally from as-Samu, a village south of Hebron, recently traveled there from Washington, DC. Upon arrival, the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade terror group issued an official statement threatening to shoot him.
Calling Elsalameen “one of the most prominent agents of America and Israel,” the terror group said its “rifles will be aimed at him and at those with him, without the slightest hesitation.”
Officials in the State Department, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr, raised the issue of the threats with PA officials, stressing Washington’s concern, the Axios news site reported.
President Abbas’s Al-aqsa brigades issued today an explicit death threat against me for visiting my home town of Samoua in the Hebron Hills. I have no security and this threat from president Abbas and his security forces cannot be left an answered @POTUS @SecBlinken @HadyAmr pic.twitter.com/bSzyEBB42m
— Fadi Elsalameen فادي السلامين (@Elsalameen) March 20, 2021
An American official told Axios that “the welfare and safety of US citizens abroad is the State Department’s highest priority.”
With nearly 1 million followers, Elsalameen frequently comments on the PA’s “freedom of speech violations against Palestinians” on his Facebook page, he told The Times of Israel in 2019.
“The page also asked critical questions: Why have we not had presidential elections in 15 years? Why do young people and women not have a greater role in politics?” he said at the time.
In 2016, unidentified gunmen opened fire towards his West Bank home.