Palestinians accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as 70 killed in West Bank

RAMALLAH: The office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced an Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank as “ethnic cleansing” on Monday, with the health ministry saying Israeli 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 occupied 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 to AFP they were “killed by the Israeli occupation”.

Israeli prime minister in Washington for Gaza ceasefire talks

The figures showed 38 people killed in Jenin and 15 in Tubas in the north of the West Bank. One was killed in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, it added.

The Israeli military launched a major offensive in the West Bank on January 21 aimed at rooting out Palestinian armed groups from the Jenin area.

“We demand the intervention of the US administration before it is too late, to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against our people and our land,” Rudeineh told the Palestinian official news agency WAFA in a statement coinciding with a visit by Israeli 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.

Netanyahu is visiting Washington, where he is expected to begin talks on a second phase of Israel’s truce with Hamas in Gaza on Monday.

The next stage is expected to cover the release of the remaining captives and include discussions on a more permanent end to the war.