Israel is expanding its aggression in Gaza to West Bank: Official

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - Israel is expanding its aggression in the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and Jerusalem, aiming to kill and displace as many Palestinians as possible, Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Thursday.

Abu Rudeinah made the remarks at a press conference, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

"Israel has moved its full-fledged aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza to the West Bank, where today it killed and wounded dozens of our people," he said.

"Israel aims to kill and displace as many Palestinians as possible and to liquidate the Palestinian cause."

Abu Rudeinah called on the US to "oblige the Israeli occupation government to stop this comprehensive aggression against our people everywhere."

Questioning the US administration’s position on Israel’s attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, he said: “Does the bombing of the city of Jenin and its camp with missiles and planes and the killing of dozens of our people, including children and women, fall within the category of self-defense, or is it brutal aggression, genocide, murder and displacement?”

He called on upcoming Arab and Islamic summits to take decisions that are "commensurate with the scale of this Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people."

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms the brutal aggression and attacks committed by the occupation forces since this morning against our people in general and against Jenin, its camp and its towns in particular."

“The occupation authorities are practicing collective punishment on our people in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank and are trying to impose new changes on reality by force, in a way that serves their map of colonial interests,” it said.

It also accused Israel of attempting "to explode the situation in the occupied West Bank and force it into an uncontrollable spiral of violence" and pushing to change realities on the ground, benefitting from the global preoccupation with the war on Gaza.

The statement called on the international community to "intervene immediately to stop the occupation's aggression against our people and to force the occupying state to submit to the international will for peace and end its occupation of the land of the State of Palestine before it is too late."

Eighteen Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank on Thursday, taking the death toll in the occupied territory since the recent conflict flared up to 181.

Israel conducts daily military raids in various cities of the West Bank amid increased settler violence.