US presses PA to accept plan to quash Palestinian armed groups

The US is placing the onus on the Palestinian Authority to enhance safety within the West Financial institution, regardless of Israeli raids.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (R) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shake arms following their assembly in Ramallah within the occupied West Financial institution [Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP]

The highest diplomat of the US, Antony Blinken, has put strain on Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to “regain management” of Jenin and Nablus within the occupied West Financial institution, in accordance with a report, placing duty for the escalating violence within the territory on the Palestinians, regardless of continued Israeli raids which have killed at the very least 200 folks within the final yr.

The US plan would see the PA clamp down on newly emergent Palestinian armed teams within the West Financial institution, sources instructed the Axios information web site.

In response to the report, printed on Wednesday, Palestinians expressed reservations over the dearth of emphasis within the plan on Israel de-escalating and reducing its raids within the West Financial institution.

The report got here on the again of a Center East tour by Blinken earlier this week, the place he first met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after which Abbas within the West Financial institution metropolis of Ramallah.

Each visits happened amid heightened tensions between Israel and Palestine after Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians final Thursday within the Jenin refugee camp throughout a army raid. One other man later died from his wounds on Saturday.

The confrontation led to a number of hours of intense preventing by which an aged girl additionally misplaced her life.

A day later, an attacker shot lifeless seven folks close to a synagogue in an Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.

Citing Israeli and US sources, the Axios report stated Blinken had urged the PA president “to just accept and implement a safety plan” that was drafted by US safety coordinator Michael Fenzel.

The plan, the sources stated, contains the PA’s safety forces regaining management of the northern a part of the West Financial institution, particularly Nablus and Jenin. The officers additionally stated a particular Palestinian pressure would obtain coaching to then be deployed within the space to counter armed teams’ resistance.

The 2 cities have emerged as a hub for armed teams composed of younger Palestinians who've grown annoyed by the occupation and the more and more unpopular PA.

Many of those teams have affiliations with conventional Palestinian factions – resembling Fatah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – however are usually not working underneath their direct management.

The Israeli army says its raids have been partially a crackdown on these new armed teams, though raids have lengthy been a daily prevalence within the West Financial institution.

In 2022, greater than 170 Palestinians, together with at the very least 30 youngsters, have been killed throughout the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem, the deadliest yr since 2006, in accordance with the United Nations.

Not less than a additional 35 have been killed in January alone, together with 5 youngsters.

Fenzel’s plan was introduced to the Israeli authorities and to the PA a number of weeks in the past, learn the report, including that whereas it had acquired the assist of the Israeli authorities, there have been “many reservations” from Palestinian authorities.

Such grievances, the sources stated, stemmed from an absence of references over the necessity to lower Israeli forces’ incursions into Palestinian territories and to construct up public assist for such an operation.

The Palestinian officers additionally instructed the US officers that they “don’t have the legitimacy to function throughout the day when the Israeli army conducts raids that result in Palestinian deaths at evening”, learn the report.

“I additionally heard constructive concepts for sensible steps that every aspect can take to decrease the temperature, to foster better cooperation, to bolster folks’s safety,” Blinken stated, throughout a information convention after his tour, with out elaborating additional. “And so I’ve requested senior members of my group to remain on within the area and proceed discussions on how these steps may really be superior,” he added.