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

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud 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.

"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.

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.

Meanwhile, two officials from Hamas told AFP on Monday that the Palestinian group

is ready to begin talks on the details of a second phase of the ongoing truce in Gaza.

"Hamas has informed the mediators, during ongoing communications and meetings held with Egyptian mediators last week in Cairo, that we are ready to start the negotiations for the second phase," one official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

"We call on the mediators to ensure that the occupation adheres to the agreement and does not stall," they added.

A second official said the group was "waiting for the mediators to initiate the next round".

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel -- the first phase of which came into effect on January 19 -- indirect talks to hammer out the details of phase two were due to start Monday.