ISTANBUL

A top Hamas leader on Wednesday urged university students across the world to again start their protests to demand a halt to the US and international support to Israel, which continues to attack Gaza and launched a military operation in the West Bank on Wednesday.

"With the return of the academic year and the approach of the first anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation (on Oct. 7), there must be a preparation at all fronts (...) to send a message to Washington and the world to stop the aggression on Gaza," Khaled Mashal, the former head of Hamas's political bureau and current leader of its diaspora office, said at a conference in Istanbul to commemorate the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.

"Don't leave Gaza alone," Mashal said, urging the people worldwide to initiate activities in support of Gaza.

On April 18, pro-Palestine students at Colombia University in the US staged an encampment demanding the cessation of the university's investments linked to Israel as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The student action then expanded to more universities in the US and Europe, including France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Canada.

Commenting on the developments in the northern occupied West Bank and the Israeli major military operation, the Hamas leader said: "This situation requires an open struggle, they (Israel) are openly fighting us and we will openly oppose them," and added that it requires escalating armed attacks against Israel.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army launched a major military operation in the northern West Bank, the largest in two decades. Raids were carried out in the north of the occupied territory, including in the governorates of Nablus, Tulkarem, Jenin and Tubas.

Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank amid a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 40,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.

Over 660 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 5,400 others injured in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian figures.

In a landmark opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar