Arabic version: إسرائيل تطلق عملية كبرى في الضفة الغربية بعد هجوم على حاجز عسكري
According to Al Jazeera, Israel’s military has begun a major operation in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank following an attack at an Israeli military checkpoint near Hebron that killed two Israeli soldiers. The two suspected Palestinian gunmen were shot dead. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a full lockdown of the West Bank and said forces would go house-to-house in the Hebron neighbourhood from which the suspects came.
The Israeli military said its “counterterrorism” campaign, involving soldiers, police and other security agents, would last several days and would be accompanied by operations in dozens of other West Bank locations. By Saturday morning, Israeli forces had raided at least 15 towns in the north, including Nablus, Jenin, Tubas and Qalqilya, arresting dozens of Palestinians, Al Jazeera correspondents reported.
In Hebron, Israeli forces used roadblocks and sent in a bulldozer, while an earlier demolition destroyed a three-storey building. Hundreds of Palestinian families were ordered to leave homes in the Ein Deir Bahha area and nearby locations. Al Jazeera reported that the Hebron municipality said up to half the neighbourhood targeted overnight had been forcibly displaced, with at least 200 families outside their homes. Seven district entrances to Hebron were closed, with pedestrian passage limited and unpredictable.
The operation has drawn support from far-right Israeli officials and criticism from the United Nations and rights groups. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the offensive to proceed “exactly like in Gaza”, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the Palestinian Authority to be dismantled. B’Tselem warned that planned measures amounted to “collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”. The UN’s Human Rights Office said the lockdown was another episode of measures making life increasingly unbearable for Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority said more than 40,000 people had been forcibly displaced from their homes in the West Bank since the beginning of 2025 by settler violence and armed-force raids. It warned that the Hebron operation included the forced displacement of neighbourhoods, demolition of homes and structures, and the closure and siege of Palestinian cities.
