Palestinians Cut Security Ties with Israel over Killing of Nine Terrorists

In a dramatic announcement, the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday said it was terminating security coordination with Israel after the IDF killed nine Palestinians – eight of whom were terrorists – in a raid in Jenin.

The U.S. responded that the move to stop coordination was “not the right decision.”

“The security coordination with the Israeli occupation government is no longer existent as of now,” said PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, accusing Israel of committing a “massacre” against the Palestinians.

On Thursday, Israeli forces entered a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, a hotbed of terror, as part of a counter-terror operation aimed at preventing a large-scale bombing attack by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group. Nine people were killed, most of whom PIJ terrorists, and one civilian.

It is unclear whether the civilian died by Israeli or terrorist fire.

Twenty more people were injured.

Abu Rudaineh went on to say that the Palestinian leadership would appeal to the U.N. Security Council to “provide protection for our people” under Chapter 7 of the UN charter as well as to the International Court of Justice to investigate the raid in Jenin earlier in the day.

“Whoever gave the order to carry out this operation” must be held accountable at the ICJ, he said.

The move is likely to cause even more of an uptick in terrorist attacks and turmoil in the West Bank at first, but will likely settle down in the ensuing months, commentators said.

The Palestinian Authority has made multiple threats to cancel security coordination with Israel in recent years, and even went as far as to actually suspend it for a few months following former President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century.”

The Biden administration expressed its opposition to the PA’s decision to cut security ties.

“We don’t think this is the right step to take at this moment,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf told reporters. “Far from stepping back on security coordination, we believe it’s quite important that the parties retain, and if anything, deepen security coordination.”