Israeli forces pushed into the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday and displaced around 250 families, some in the middle of the night, vowing to exact a heavy price for a deadly attack on soldiers.
The Palestinian Authority called for international pressure on Israel to protect residents, who said soldiers announced the evacuations over loudspeakers late at night as they packed what they could and left.
Days before tight elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was planning an operation on a scale not seen since Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967, after Palestinian fighters killed two Israeli soldiers on Friday at a checkpoint.
In the Hebron neighbourhood of Ein Deir Baha, nestled between two hills, vacated buildings were marked by X’s and the streets were deserted, save a pair of Israeli military vehicles. Israeli flags were draped on a house on the slope apparently taken over by troops.
Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, 70, a shopkeeper who sells live chickens and feed and plays a leadership role in the neighbourhood, said he was awakened at 1:00am by soldiers and a senior officer who said he had to leave.
“I asked them how long the evacuation would last. They said: ‘Until further notice.’”
He told AFP he had only a short time to pack, adding that for some residents, getting out of the neighbourhood was an ordeal.
“For example, my wife’s mother, who is 90 years old and lives in the area, had to be carried out because she is ill,” he said.
Visiting Hebron, Netanyahu said he and Defence Minister Israel Katz were “considering a very extensive IDF operation in Judea and Samaria, such as has not been carried out since” the 1967 war.
The first step would see Israeli forces “enter the neighbourhood from which the terrorists came, evacuate the residents, go from house to house, and destroy the terrorist infrastructure”, he claimed.
Hamas, while not claiming credit, hailed Friday’s attack on soldiers and called on supporters to carry out more.
‘Why should I be displaced?’
To Tamimi, this is only happening because Netanyahu wants to win the election on “the blood of the Palestinian people”.
He said people were not going anywhere. “I have lived through all the stages of the occupation, and I will die here.”
The Palestinian Authority said it was mobilising its diplomats to seek “urgent international action that goes beyond condemnation” to prevent forced displacement.
Tamimi’s brother, Khaled Shawer al-Tamimi, 68, was staying with his son after the evacuation order.
“The army was announcing through loudspeakers: ‘Leave the area.’ So we left.”
He told AFP he was surprised to hear Friday’s assailants came from the neighbourhood, which he described as middle-class and law-abiding.
“We have never seen or even heard a single gunshot being fired,” he said from his son’s sitting room as children flitted about.
“Why should I be displaced from my house?” he continued. The attackers “are the ones who carried out the act, and if the Israeli government wants to punish them, it can punish them.”
Israeli forces have already demolished some buildings in the immediate vicinity of where the attack took place, and the Tamimis said they did not know if their homes would meet the same fate.
Hebron governor Khaled Dudin told AFP the army started in the attackers’ neighbourhood, “but there is no guarantee that the operation will not expand”, calling it a form of “collective punishment”.
The governor said 150 families had been affected, while Hebron mayor Youssef al-Jaabari and local activist Issa Amro put the figure at 250.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem called for urgent international pressure to prevent Israel from pursuing “plans for collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, through a spokesman, voiced concern over Israeli closures that affect Palestinian livelihoods and called for a halt to violence on all sides.
Netanyahu promises PA ‘surprise’
The Israeli military said it was “conducting precise, targeted and thorough searches” focused on the area of the two gunmen, who were both killed in a firefight. It added that the operation would last several days.
But Netanyahu suggested that bigger action was coming.
Asked if he agreed with the idea of dismantling the Palestinian Authority, as has been suggested by his far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Netanyahu referred to Israeli military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
“We transformed the Middle East,” he said, repeating a common campaign refrain, in an interview with i24News.
“There is a very big surprise for the Palestinian Authority as well.”
There is no evidence that the Palestinian Authority had any involvement in Friday’s attack.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a position within the defence ministry, called for a large-scale military offensive in the West Bank “exactly like in Gaza”.
Both Ben Gvir and Smotrich are especially vocal supporters of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which have proliferated under Netanyahu’s government but are illegal under international law.
Netanyahu has linked the assailants to Hamas, the resistance group in Gaza that carried out the Oct 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history.
The attack came amid rising tensions in the West Bank as Israeli settlers, who enjoy strong support from Netanyahu’s far-right allies, ramp up seizures of Palestinian land and attacks.
Rights group Yesh Din reported 672 incidents of settler violence over the past 26 days, nearly half related to the annual olive harvest.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 1,117 Palestinians in the territory since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
Israeli figures show that at least 51 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations during the same period.
Polls show Netanyahu is neck and neck with an opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, a centre-right former military chief who also opposes a Palestinian state but has promised to crack down on settler violence.