The Israeli military has forced around 1,200 Palestinians to leave their homes in Hebron in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian official said on Saturday, a day after a Palestinian attack killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near the city.
A checkpoint in Hebron. Photo: Makbula Nassar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that the military would launch a large-scale operation after the soldiers were killed when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at the checkpoint. The Israeli military said the gunmen were shot dead.
The operation is centred on the Al-Jaladah and Ein Deir Baha neighbourhoods near the checkpoint at the entrance to Hebron. The military said the operation was aimed at searching for militants and weapons, and that it would also carry out demolitions in the area.
Yousef Zouhair Al-Jabari, the head of Hebron's municipality, said around 1,200 people had already been displaced and that about 1,300 more faced losing their homes. He said the military had demolished shops, factories, homes and roads, and described the response as disproportionate and unjustified.
Residents told Reuters that the military expelled many people who had no connection to the Palestinian attackers. The Palestinian Authority criticised the operation as "collective punishment".
The Palestinian Prisoners' Club, a non-governmental organisation, said Israeli forces had arrested around 70 Palestinians on Friday and Saturday. Israeli officials have not commented on any arrests.
Al-Jabari also claimed the scale of the operation was motivated by Israel's parliamentary elections on Tuesday, when opinion polls show Netanyahu's right-wing coalition may lose its majority. "Netanyahu and the radical ministers in his government are trying to win as many votes as possible from the settlers," he said. That claim is his own assessment; the Israeli government has not commented on it.
Hebron, about 120 kilometres southwest of Jerusalem, is one of the most tense cities in the occupied West Bank, home to both a large Palestinian population and Israeli settlers. The city has seen repeated clashes and tight military controls for years, and the latest operation comes as tensions across the West Bank remain high.
It was not immediately clear how long the operation would last or how many of the displaced residents would be able to return to their homes. The military has not said when the search and demolition work in the two neighbourhoods will be complete.
What is clear is the scale of the displacement: more than 1,000 people forced from their homes in a single operation, with another 1,300 facing the same prospect, according to the city's municipality. For the families affected, the immediate question is shelter, not politics — and for the wider region, the operation is a fresh sign of how quickly a single attack can trigger a large military response.
Sources: Reuters; AFP.