A statement issued by the President’s Office reported Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that the president decided on Monday to “stop all contacts and meetings with the Israeli side… and continue to stop security coordination.”
This came after the Israeli forces launched a massive military operation against the city of Jenin in the West Bank.
The decision was issued after Abbas held a meeting with other leaders of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian president has previously temporarily suspended security coordination with Israel several times, in conjunction with previous waves of violence.
On Monday, the Israeli army killed nine Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to what the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced, eight of them in the Jenin camp, where it is carrying out an incursion, the largest in nearly 20 years, that included aerial bombardment by drones.
Israel is launching the massive operation that it announced early Monday, two weeks after another major operation targeting the Jenin camp, which included helicopter strikes for the first time in years.
The identities of the eight dead in the Jenin camp showed that three of them did not exceed the age of 17 years, and the rest were between 18 and 23 years old, including a dead person in the city of Al-Bireh who was injured during a demonstration in solidarity with Jenin.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said that Israeli forces were striking “with great force” in the Jenin area.
The city of Jenin and its neighboring refugee camp have become a scene of confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which in the past months have intensified their operations in the northern occupied West Bank, with the increase in armed operations targeting Israelis, along with attacks by settlers on Palestinians, their property, and their crops.
“Protecting civilian lives”
On the other hand, the US State Department said Monday that it is necessary to take all precautionary measures to prevent the loss of civilian lives after Israeli forces struck the city of Jenin with drones in one of the largest operations in the West Bank in 20 years.
“It is necessary to take all precautionary measures to prevent the loss of civilian lives,” a ministry spokesman said.
He confirmed the previous statements of the White House National Security Council spokesman, in which he said, “We support Israel’s security and its right to defend its people in the face of the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements and other terrorist groups.”
FRANCE 24/Reuters/AFP
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2023-07-03 19:52:50
