RAMALLAH: The office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced a Zionist operation in the occupied West Bank as “ethnic cleansing” on Monday, with the health ministry saying Zionist forces killed 70 people in the territory this year. In a statement, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the Palestinian presidency “condemned the occupation authorities’ expansion of their comprehensive war on our Palestinian people in the West Bank to implement their plans aimed at displacing citizens and ethnic cleansing”.
Later, the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said there had been “70 martyrs in the West Bank since the beginning of this year”, with 10 children, one woman and two elderly people among the dead. The ministry confirmed they were “killed by the Zionist occupation”. The figures showed 38 people killed in Jenin and 15 in Tubas in the north of the West Bank. One was killed in annexed east Jerusalem, it added.
The military launched a major offensive in the West Bank on January 21 aimed at rooting out Palestinian armed groups from the Jenin area, which has long been a hotbed of militancy. “We demand the intervention of the US administration before it is too late, to stop the ongoing aggression against our people and our land,” Rudeineh told the Palestinian
official news agency WAFA in a statement coinciding with a visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington. On Sunday, the army said it had killed more than 50 “terrorists” during the operation that began on January 21 and in air strikes the preceding week.
PM in Washington
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began talks on Monday on a second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas as he met with the new Trump administration in Washington. Just over two weeks after the Gaza truce began, two Hamas officials said the group was ready to begin talks on the details of a second phase, which could help secure a lasting cessation of violence.
Before leaving, Netanyahu told reporters he would discuss “victory over Hamas”, countering Iran and freeing all hostages when he meets President Donald Trump on Tuesday. It will be Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader since returning to the White House in January, a prioritisation Netanyahu said showed “the strength of (Zionist)-American alliance”. With fragile ceasefires holding in both Gaza and Lebanon—where a Zionist campaign badly weakened Iran-backed Hezbollah—Zionist entity has turned its focus to the occupied West Bank and an operation that it says is aimed at rooting out extremism that has killed dozens.
Netanyahu said wartime decisions had reshaped the Middle East and that with Trump’s support, this could go “even further”. Trump, who has claimed credit for sealing the ceasefire deal after 15 months of war, said Sunday negotiations with Zionist entity and other countries in the Middle East were “progressing”. Netanyahu’s office said he would begin discussions with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday over terms for the second phase of the Gaza truce.
The next stage is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and could lead to a more permanent end to the war. One Hamas official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the Palestinian group “has informed the mediators... that we are ready to start the negotiations for the second phase”. A second official said Hamas was “waiting for the mediators to initiate the next round”. The Washington discussions are also expected to cover normalization efforts between Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia, which Riyadh froze early in the Gaza war.- AFP