The spiritual leader of one of Israel's ruling parties has appealed to God to inflict the plague on Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is the spiritual head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, one of the parties that makes up Israel's ruling coalition. In a sermon he said "May all the nasty people who hate Israel vanish from our world", and named Mahmoud Abbas. "May God strike them down with the plague, along with all Palestinians who persecute Israel." Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has condemned the remarks as an incitement to genocide and questioned how he could effectively call for the Palestinian leader's assassination while the Israeli government prepares for peace talks.