A senior Hamas official based outside Gaza has urged Palestinians in the West Bank to resume suicide bombings against Israel, according to a report by Israel National News.

Khaled Mashal, who leads Hamas' external operations, called on Wednesday for "residents of the West Bank" to "return to attacks of self-sacrifice for Allah," the news outlet reported. Speaking in Istanbul, Mashal said such attacks should begin "in their cities" and emphasized "the necessity to open all fronts against the occupation."

The Hamas leader's comments come as the war in Gaza approaches the 11-month mark. Mashal framed the ongoing conflict as part of what Hamas calls the "al-Aqsa Flood" – the group's name for its October 7 attacks on Israel that triggered the current war.

He asserted that Hamas "bears responsibility for the Palestinian people" and is working to halt what he termed "aggression against Gaza" while also seeking to deliver humanitarian aid to residents there.

Mashal also expressed support for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza who Israeli forces have been pursuing. "The Hamas movement abroad puts its trust in the leader Yahya Sinwar, who the Zionist intelligence is chasing to harm and kill him," Mashal stated.

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The Taliban praised suicide bombers who died during the war against the former government and its Western allies and offered their families sums of cash and promises of land, the movement's interior ministry said in a statement.

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Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has a $10 million US bounty on his head as a "specially designated global terrorist," met the families at a ceremony at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which was itself targeted by suicide bombers in 2018.

Official photographs of the meeting on Tuesday obscured his face.

"In his speech, the minister praised the Jihad and sacrifices of the martyrs and Mujahidin and called them heroes of Islam and the country," the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Twitter.

Families of the suicide bombers were given clothing, 10,000 afghani ($111) and promised plots of land, spokesman Qari Sayeed Khosti said.

Haqqani took over from his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as head of the Haqqani network, a group affiliated with the Taliban that was blamed by Western intelligence services for some of the bloodiest suicide attacks of the war.

He is wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with an attack on another hotel in Kabul in 2008 in which six people, including an American citizen, were killed.

Following the Taliban's victory over the Western-backed government which collapsed in August, Islamic State members have carried out a series of suicide bombings against mosques and other targets, killing hundreds of civilians.

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The rise in violence in Judea and Samaria comes as no surprise to Israel's defense and security establishment, and the IDF has been preparing for several weeks for the possibility of suicide terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, there is growing concern about copycat terrorist attacks following Sunday's shooting at Tapuach Junction, which left three Israelis wounded, including one in critical condition. Doctors at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva were battling for his life on Monday morning.

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There are a few reasons for the heightened concern. First, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' decision last Thursday to postpone the Palestinian legislative elections, originally scheduled for May 22. Abbas blamed his decision on Israel, on the grounds that Israel had refused to allow Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem to vote in the PA elections, but the major factor in his decision was his fear of a Hamas victory.

In addition to the postponement of the PA elections, Palestinian Muslims are observing Ramadan, which is usually marked by security incidents. The fourth week of Ramadan, generally considered the most difficult, falls next week, coinciding this year with Jerusalem Day, also a fraught date often marked by rioting.

As of Sunday night, the IDF had not yet increased its forces in Judea and Samaria, partly because additional forces were already deployed there at the start of Ramadan. But because the security establishment fears that "successful" terrorist attacks – ones that kill or wound Israelis – will inspire more potential terrorists, the IDF plans to increase its presence on major roads and intersections.

The drive-by shooting at Tapuach Junction on Sunday came after a 60-year-old Palestinian woman attempted to stab an IDF soldier at Gush Etzion Junction that morning.

IDF soldiers at the scene shot the woman in the upper body, neutralizing her. She was evacuated for medical treatment in serious condition. No Israelis were wounded.

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Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the former spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and who approved Palestinian suicide terrorist attacks on religious grounds, has contracted COVID-19, according to a message on his official Twitter page posted Saturday.

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The Islamic religious scholar now lives in Qatar. His advanced age, 94, puts him in a high-risk group for the virus. The Twitter message said Qaradawi was still in good health and that he was under medical observation.

In 2018, Qaradawi announced he was resigning as head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. For years, Hamas viewed Qaradawi as its religious authority

In 2001, after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Qaradawi published a ruling that specifically allowed Muslim men and women to perpetrate suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, claiming that such attacks were an act of "sacrifice" and that the bombers were sacrificing themselves for the sake of the Muslim religion and nation in a war against Israel.

Over 10 years later, Qaradawi stepped back from this position, arguing that the Palestinians had rockets and other forms of weaponry, rendering suicide bombings unnecessary.

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Trump's stunning weekend announcement that he had canceled a secret meeting with Taliban leaders and the Afghan president at Camp David and halted negotiations left many in Washington and Kabul scrambling to understand what will happen now.

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"They're dead," Trump said of the negotiations on Monday, after the Taliban signaled they would return to talks.

At the same time, the Taliban said Trump's decision to upend the deal just before its signing "displays lack of composure and experience," and they vowed to continue their fight against "foreign occupation."

"What more violence can they bring?" Afghan presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said in an interview. "What else can they do? You know they have killed 300 civilians in the past three weeks. ... So we will not be surprised if we see more attacks, but they have already done it."

Political analyst Waheed Muzhda was gloomy about the prospects for the country.

"Unfortunately all the months of efforts came to an end with no result," he said, "and I think the fight in Afghanistan will continue for long years."

Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and more than 2,400 American service members have been killed in nearly 18 years of war that began when the US invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when they were ousted by the US military for hosting the mastermind of 9/11, Osama bin Laden.

Afghans were wary of fresh violence in part because Trump's announcement came shortly before a string of highly sensitive days in Afghanistan, including Monday's anniversary of the killing of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the major Shiite Muslim holy day of Ashoura on Tuesday, and Wednesday's 9/11 anniversary.

There were no immediate reports of any major attacks in the country, but the streets of the capital, Kabul, were largely empty as armed supporters of Massoud, a rare Afghan unifying figure who was killed two days before 9/11, roamed in flag-draped vehicles, firing into the air in a show of power. One police officer was killed, officials said.

Elsewhere in Kabul, a roadside bomb wounded three civilians, but there was no claim of responsibility. And in northeastern Takhar province, the Taliban claimed attacks on at least two districts overnight, with no immediate reports of casualties.

In calling off negotiations, Trump cited a Taliban car bombing Thursday near the US Embassy in Kabul that killed an American service member along with 11 others. The insurgent group has defended its continued attacks even while a deal was taking shape, saying they were intended to strengthen its bargaining position.

Trump's decision got a mixed reaction in Afghanistan.

Many people seek peace above all after four decades of various conflicts. But some fear a failed or weak deal could lead to the government's collapse and bring another civil war like the one that raged in the 1990s before the Taliban swept into power.

Some feared that the deal that was on the table would do little or nothing to stop the carnage against the Afghan people. Also, many Afghan women have been wary of a Taliban return to power in some form under the intra-Afghan talks that would follow a US-Taliban deal, recalling the years of oppression under a strict form of Islamic law.

Under the agreement in principle that the US and the Taliban had worked out, the US would withdraw about 5,000 of the 14,000 American troops from the country within 4½ months, and the insurgents would agree to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a launchpad for global terror attacks by al-Qaida and others.

But such assurances would be "unbelievable," said Sediqqi, the Afghan presidential spokesman. He said other groups across the region would have seen the deal as a victory for the Taliban and "would have joined them."

He said the only way now for the Taliban to re-enter the peace process is to accept a ceasefire and speak directly with the Afghan government, which has been sidelined in the talks because the Taliban dismiss it as a US puppet.

Others in the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reacted positively to Trump's decision.

"Inviting un-repenting & unapologetic terrorists and mass murderers to Camp David would have tarnished the stature of the camp. ... Gratified that the US returned back to a principled stand," Ghani's running mate, Amrullah Saleh, tweeted.

Ghani, who is seeking re-election, has been insisting that the country's Sept. 28 election be held as scheduled and not set aside by a US-Taliban deal. Trump's decision appears to have suddenly opened the path to a vote.

The Afghan president appeared to make an important shift in his stance on direct talks with the Taliban, declaring that his country is ready to meet but that "negotiation without a ceasefire is not possible." The Afghan government had previously said that it had no conditions for entering talks with the Taliban.

Ghani also invited Taliban chief Maulvi Haibatullah Akhundzada to a video conference and urged him to "at least talk with people" instead of hiding.

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"The Americans will suffer more than anyone else for cancelling the talks," Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline insurgent group, said in a statement.

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Afghan President Ashraf Ghani urged the Taliban on Sunday to end violence and talk directly to his government after Trump announced he had canceled a planned meeting with the insurgent group over a draft peace accord.

"Real peace will come when Taliban agree to a ceasefire," Ghani's officials said in a statement in response to Trump's cancellation of the secret peace talks.

Trump on Saturday said he canceled peace talks with Afghanistan's Taliban leaders after the insurgent group claimed responsibility last week for an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.

Trump said he had planned a secret meeting with the Taliban's "major leaders" on Sunday at a presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland. Trump said he also planned to meet with Afghanistan's president.

But Trump said he immediately called the talks off when the insurgents said they were behind the attack.

"If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don't have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway," Trump said on Twitter.

The surprise announcement left in doubt the future of the draft accord worked out last week by Zalmay Khalilzad, the special US envoy for peace in Afghanistan, for a drawdown of thousands of US troops over the coming months.

There was no immediate reaction from the Taliban but the decision appeared to catch them by surprise.

Just hours before Trump's tweet, a senior Taliban leader privy to talks in Doha with US officials including Khalilzad and Taliban chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said an agreement to sign the deal appeared close.

Taliban fighters, who now control more territory than at any time since 2001, launched fresh assaults on the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri over the past week and carried out two major suicide bombings in the capital Kabul.

One of the blasts, a suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday, took the life of US Army Sergeant 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Puerto Rico, bringing the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 16.

A spike in attacks by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan has been "particularly unhelpful" to peace efforts there, a senior US military commander said on Saturday as he visited neighboring Pakistan, where many Taliban militants are based.

US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees American troops in the region, declined to comment on the diplomatic negotiations themselves but criticized a wave of Taliban violence that has cast a long shadow over the deal.

"It is particularly unhelpful at this moment in Afghanistan's history for the Taliban to ramp up violence," McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told reporters traveling with him.

McKenzie said for the peace process to move forward, "all parties should be committed to an eventual political settlement" which, in turn, should result in reduced violence.

"If we can't get that going in, then it is difficult to see the parties are going to be able to carry out the terms of the agreement, whatever they might or might not be," McKenzie said.

Under the draft accord, some 5,000 US troops would be withdrawn over the coming months in exchange for guarantees Afghanistan would not be used as a base for terrorist attacks on the United States and its allies.

However, a full peace agreement to end more than 18 years of war would depend on subsequent "intra Afghan" talks involving officials and civil society leaders as well as further agreement on issues including the remainder of the roughly 14,000-strong US forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops.

The Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and instead stepped up operations across the country and it remains unclear whether they will accept direct negotiations with the Afghan government, which they consider an illegitimate "puppet" regime.

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On Thursday, Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip arrested nine members of the terror cell involved in the attacks, saying that "all of them are from the Islamic Jihad from Shujaiyya," referring to the central Gaza City neighborhood.

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The Hamas source told Asharq al-Awsat that the PA's intelligence service had exploited "people with inappropriate leanings and deviant thoughts" to harm and undermine the political situation in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, meanwhile, said on Twitter that "the Palestinian intelligence service under [Palestinian General Security Service chief] Majed Faraj is behind every attempt to foment chaos in the Gaza Strip."

Faraj, according to Barhoum, "is acting on behalf of the Zionist Shin Bet [security agency]."

The accusations mark Hamas' most severe attack on the PA since reconciliation talks between the sides, which were mediated by Egypt, collapsed in 2018. Since then, the conflict between Hamas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, has only worsened.

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