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 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.”
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, 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 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.
Palestinians accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as 70 killed in West Bank
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Palestinians accuse Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ as 70 killed in West Bank
- Palestinian presidency “condemned the occupation authorities’ expansion of their comprehensive war on our Palestinian people in the West Bank
Israel reports bird flu outbreak on farm in north, WOAH says
- The outbreak, the first in a year in Israel, was detected in a flock of 2,000 ducks in the village of Sde Yaakov
PARIS: Israel reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on a farm in the north of the country, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Tuesday.
The outbreak, the first in a year in Israel, was detected in a flock of 2,000 ducks in the village of Sde Yaakov, causing the death of 90 birds, the Paris-based WOAH said, citing a report from the Israeli authorities. The remaining birds were subsequently culled as a precaution.
The spread of avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has raised concerns among governments and the poultry industry after it ravaged flocks around the world in recent years, disrupting supply, fueling higher food prices and raising the risk of human transmission.
