Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a “full lockdown” of the occupied West Bank on Friday after Israel’s military said it killed two Palestinians accused of launching a shooting attack that injured five people near the city of Hebron.
The deadly incident comes just days before a crucial election that will decide whether Netanyahu can hold on to power.
There has been a recent surge in Israeli settler violence and military activity in the West Bank centered on the start of the olive harvesting season, with Palestinians, activists and American journalists among those attacked and detained.
Netanyahu’s office said said it instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “impose a closure” on Hebron and to prepare for a “full lockdown” across the entire West Bank starting Friday.
In comments following an emergency meeting with his Security Cabinet and top military and security officials, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the shooting and said the militant group was “planning a major attack aimed at murdering innocent civilians.”
He cited “large quantities of weapons and ammunition discovered,” but did not provide further details on the attack.
“Our brave soldiers thwarted this attack with courage and determination,” he said in a statement shared by the Israeli government’s press office. “I commend them for their actions and wish our wounded a speedy recovery,” he added. He did not say whether the injured included soldiers or civilians.
The order to lock down the West Bank came hours after the Israeli military said it had killed two people after a shooting attack in which at least five people were reported injured. It said the gunmen had been armed with an M16 rifle and a handgun and that “numerous” soldiers would be operating in the area following the incident.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s primary emergency service, said it received a report at around 7.15 a.m. local time (12.15 a.m. ET) of multiple casualties following the attack near the Yehuda Junction, near Hebron. It said first responders had provided medical treatment to at least five people, including two in critical condition.
The identities of the two people alleged to have launched the attack and who were killed by Israeli forces was not immediately clear as of late Friday morning.
The lockdown comes ahead of next week’s Israeli election, which is largely viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu’s leadership around the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
Netanyahu has focused much of campaign in the lead-up to next Tuesday’s vote on security for Israelis. His government has repeatedly warned of potential attacks by the country’s “enemies” in the lead-up to the election, without providing evidence.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, called Friday for the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that has long overseen parts of the West Bank, to be dismantled in response to the alleged attack near Hebron.
“There cannot be a situation where, within Judea and Samaria, we have a state of terror,” he said in a post on X, using a name employed by some Israelis for the area. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich shared similar sentiments, saying there was “no avoiding a comprehensive military campaign” in the West Bank to “dismantle the Palestinian authority, collect weapons, and eliminate terrorists — just as in Gaza and Lebanon.”
The West Bank has been a growing flashpoint for months, and the past week has seen another wave of settler violence and military activity in the territory as the Palestinian olive harvesting season has gotten underway.
American nationals are among those who have come under attack while accompanying Palestinian farmers on their harvests. Earlier this week New York congressional candidate Brad Lander was detained in the area alongside a number of activists and American rabbis.
Settler violence has long flared during the olive harvesting season, but in the years since the Oct. 7 attacks, violence has increased sharply, with Palestinians also seeing their olives stolen.
According to the United Nations, at least 160 Israeli settler attacks linked to the olive harvesting season were recorded in the first two weeks of October alone. The U.N. said many of those attacks were carried out “under the protection of, or with the participation of, Israeli forces.”
Netanyahu’s government has backed settler expansion in the West Bank despite international condemnation.
The mounting settler violence has increasingly been described as terrorism by some global officials, including by U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.