The Palestinian Government Media Center on Thursday rejected the Prime Minister’s Office’s harsh critique of the naming of a Ramallah street after arch terrorist Yehiyeh Ayash.

The organization told The Jerusalem Post that “the street was named over twelve years ago and it is nothing new,” adding that “the decisions to name streets are made independently by local authorities and municipalities like any other democratic and open society.”

“When speaking of incitements, Israel should work on cleaning up its own backyard,” the media center said. “There are hundreds of streets named for people who have committed crimes against Arabs, such as [former prime minister Menahem] Begin, Irgun and Lehi.”

Responding to a Channel 10 report on the naming of the street on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office put out a statement referring to the naming as “an outrageous glorification of terrorism by the Palestinian Authority,” and calling on the world to “forcefully condemn this official Palestinian incitement for terrorism and against peace.”

Ayash, a terrorist mastermind and chief Hamas bomb maker in the West Bank, was nicknamed “the engineer” and was responsible for a string of suicide bombings, most of them on buses, that rocked the country in the mid 1990s.

After a massive manhunt, Ayash was killed in 1996 by an Israeli explosive hidden in a cellular phone.

Ayash’s academic achievements are noted on a plaque in his honor on the street. The plaque says Israel killed Ayash following “allegations” of terrorism.