250,000 Hebron Residents Ordered Out After West Bank Shooting

Hebron's residents woke on Friday to orders to leave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a siege on the city and the nearby town of Halhul after gunmen killed two soldiers and wounded three others at a temporary checkpoint outside Hebron. He said residents of the neighborhoods where the attackers lived would be forced out and that homes would be demolished en masse. The first bulldozer reached a house near the firefight within hours of the shooting, as ministers campaigning ahead of Tuesday's elections arrived at the scene.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recorded himself standing in front of a Palestinian home as it came down. He said the building had gone up without permits and that tearing it down would "create deterrence and exact a price." No connection between the owners and the attackers was claimed. Hours later, Israel's high court issued a temporary halt to the demolition work after human rights lawyer Mohammed Dahleh petitioned on behalf of two nearby factory owners. Dahleh argued the demolition broke international law on collective punishment as well as Israeli administrative law. "What we saw today was an attempt to copy the illegal practices used in Gaza, in the heart of the West Bank," Dahleh said. Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, called Smotrich's video a "direct admission" that the demolitions amounted to collective punishment.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said more demolitions and forced displacement would follow, comparing the plan to Gaza. He said every clan neighborhood in Hebron from which attackers emerged would be cleared of residents. Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank, home to about 250,000 people. Netanyahu said plans existed for the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, adding that no date had been set but "it is on the way."

The Israeli military said two men with an assault rifle and a handgun drove a car with Israeli plates to a checkpoint outside Hebron, where soldiers stopped them. A 20-minute gunfight followed, and both were killed. An AFP photographer on his way to another assignment watched two Palestinian men firing an automatic rifle and a handgun at Israeli forces.

Afterward, prominent Israelis, including a candidate for the far-right Amcha Yisrael party, circulated claims tying the photographer to the attackers. The Foreign Press Association called those claims "dangerous and defamatory" and described the photographer as a longtime professional documenting events as his duties require. A week earlier, settlers severely injured photographer Heidi Levine while she filmed attacks on Palestinians harvesting olives.

Since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank. Violence has risen since the olive harvest began in late September. Polls show the governing far-right coalition, which backs settlers, could lose its majority in Tuesday's vote. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir traveled to Hebron on Friday and called for the Palestinian Authority to be dismantled and for tighter limits on Palestinian movement.