Abbas says Holocaust 'ugliest crime' of modern history

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called the Holocaust "the ugliest crime humanity has known in modern history."

His comments, published Sunday by the Palestinian official news agency WAFA, marked a rare acknowledgment by an Arab leader of Jewish suffering during the Nazi genocide. Some 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust.

Abbas' comments were published just hours before Israel's annual memorial for Holocaust victims.