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***update: video of bombing runs at Sky News (hat tip: Dan Riehl)…reports of chem weapons used by Palestinian terrorists…Asheri’s body found, shot in the head (hat tips: Allah and Dan)…Israel bombs pro-Hamas Islamic University…Israeli warplanes buzz Syrian president’s summer home…Bias watch: Notice how many media outlets took the terrorists’ description of their brutal murder of Asheri–”executed” (as if the teen were a criminal)–and played it straight in their headlines without the quotation marks they always use around the word “terrorist?”…Robert Spencer noticed…***

Breaking news…terrible news…18-year-old kidnap victim on the West Bank has reportedly been “executed.” PRC statement:

The Popular Resistance Committees said early Thursday that it executed 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri, an Israeli settler kidnapped earlier in the week in the West Bank.

The group, which has links to the ruling Hamas, had threatened to execute the Israeli if Israel did not halt its invasion of Gaza.

Earlier Wednesday, Israel’s fears came true Wednesday when a spokesman for the PRC in the Gaza Strip revealed an authentic copy of missing teenager Asheri’s identity card to the press, confirming claims that he had been kidnapped. n an effort to garner information about Asheri’s whereabouts, the police’s elite counterterrorist squad raided a home in Ramallah in the afternoon and arrested a fugitive. Publication of his identity was barred.

While the PRC gave no indication as to Asheri’s well-being, it reiterated an earlier threat to kill him if the IDF did not immediately withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.

A spokesman for the group told Al-Jazeera that Asheri, 18, would be “butchered in front of TV cameras” if the IDF operation in Gaza did not stop. “Our patience is running out,” he said.

Here’s Asheri’s ID card:

A body discovered earlier in the day near Ramallah was not Asheri’s.

Top Hamas leaders arrested.

909pm Eastern: Allah says there are new reports that Asheri’s body has been found.

More on the “executed” terminology from reader Sverre:

An “execution” is by definition the process where a civil or military
authority representing a nation state (of which we may or may not
approve), kills somebody after “due legal process” (of which we may or
may not approve).

A private individual, a group of same or a terrorist organization are by
definition unable to perform an execution. They can only murder, no
matter how hard they and their media supporters try to avoid the M-word.

“Execution” is etymologically derived from _executing_ a death penalty
issued by a lawful court. It is the sentence, not the prisoner who is
executed. The prisoner dies as a consequence of executing the court order.

Opponents of the death penalty may argue that this is also murder, but
this is beside the point. The point is that execution may well be
murder, but not the other way around. To refer to your killings as
executions you desperately need a nation state and at least a kangaroo
court, both items sorely lacking among the Palestinian terrorists last I
looked…

We should IMHO always refer to criminal and terrorist killings as
murder, and nothing else. Calling them “executions” grants them a
legality they do not deserve. Which probably is the very reason the MSM
so scrupulously always refer to them as such!

***

Reports on the third kidnapped Israeli missing–62-year-old Noah Moscovitch here and here.