UPDATE 2 - Jewish groups call for Palestinian leader’s death

UPDATE WITH ABBAS SPOKESMAN'S REMARKS

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – Radical Jewish groups on Tuesday called for the killing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Posters placed by the groups at the entrance of Jewish settlement of Yitzhar near the West Bank city of Nablus were inscribed with a phrase reading “supporter of terrorists” – in reference to Abbas and called for his death.

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said the threat to kill Abbas “crossed all red lines”.

“This incitement is rejected,” PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency.

He went on to hold the Israeli government responsible for any incitement against the Palestinian leader.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), also decried the threats against Abbas.

"This is a declaration of the public assassination of the peace path pursued by the president and the Palestinian leadership,” he said in a statement.

“It is a call for dragging the region to clashes and violence, for which the occupation government and [U.S. President Donald] Trump administration…will be responsible for.”

Erekat said the Palestinian leadership and people “are taking the threat [to kill Abbas] seriously”, going on to call on the international community to denounce incitement against the Palestinian leader.

Abbas is the president of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.

U.S.-sponsored peace talks between PA and Israel collapsed in 2014 over Israel’s refusal to halt settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

On Monday, Israeli forces raided Ramallah and the main office of the official Wafa news agency on claims of searching for suspects in a shooting attack that injured seven settlers on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers vandalized several Palestinian vehicles in a suspected “price tag” attack in the town of Betien, east of Ramallah, according to local residents.

The settlers also sprayed racist anti-Arab slogans on cars and walls of homes in the area and hurled stones at passing vehicles near the checkpoint of Bet Eil, the residents said.

"Price tag" vandalism is a strategy used by extremist Jewish settlers to attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for perceived threats to Israeli settlement expansion.