Palestine ends security coordination with Israel after deadly raid in West Bank

The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced on Thursday the end of security coordination with Israel in response to the killing of nine Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin.

"In the light of the repeated aggression against our people and the undermining of signed agreements, we consider that security coordination with the Israeli occupation government no longer exists as of now," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman of the Palestinian presidency, said in a press statement.

The decision came after an emergency meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, the Fatah Central Committee, and the Palestinian government. The meeting was chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli army force stormed the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank and killed nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and wounded 16, four of them in serious condition.

Abu Rudeineh called on the Palestinian factions for more peaceful popular resistance "to protect the Palestinians and their capabilities in the face of settler terrorism and the Israeli occupation forces."

The Palestinian leadership has decided to immediately turn to the UN Security Council for international protection for the Palestinian people under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to stop unilateral measures, he said.

The Palestinian leadership will also go urgently to the International Criminal Court to add "the file of the massacre committed by Israeli forces in Jenin today to the files previously submitted to the court," the spokesman added.

Security coordination between Israel and the PA was brought on by the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO in the 1990s. The establishment of the PA itself was also an outcome of the Oslo Accords.

More than 170 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in 2022, and at least 29 have been killed in January this year, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry. According to a statement issued by the United Nations, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2006.

The tensions have been further aggravated since Israel's most right-wing government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took office last month.