AFP, HEBRON, Palestinian Territories
Israeli forces yesterday pushed into the West Bank city of Hebron and displaced about 250 families, some in the middle of the night, vowing a heavy price over a deadly attack on soldiers.
Days before tight elections, Israeli 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 militants on Friday killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Hebron, a flashpoint city in which hardline Israeli settlers live surrounded by local Palestinians.
In the neighborhood of Ein Dir Baha nestled between two hills, buildings were marked by X’s showing they had been cleared of people.
Palestinians transport bags of semolina past a military gate closed to vehicles during an Israeli army operation in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, yesterday.
Photo: AP
The streets in the area were deserted of people and cars other than a pair of Israeli military vehicles, with an Israeli flag draped on a house taken over by troops.
Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, 70, a shopkeeper who sells live chickens and feed, and plays a leadership role in the neighborhood, said the army woke him up at 1am and told him and other residents to leave.
He had only two hours, and packed just clothes and his official papers. Many families had no vehicles and tried to find ways to stay with relatives elsewhere.
This is only happening “because Netanyahu wants to win” the election, he said.
“He wants to win it with the blood of the Palestinian people,” he said. “But we won’t go anywhere.”
About one-third of Hebron has been targeted, Hebron Governor Khaled Dudin said.
“They started in the neighborhood from which the people who carried out the attack came, but there is no guarantee that the operation will not expand,” he said.
“This amounts to collective punishment being imposed on civilians who have nothing at all to do with this,” he said.
The governor said 150 families had been affected, while Hebron Mayor Youssef al-Jaabari and local activist Issa Amro put the figure at 250.
“We will find them shelter and provide these people with all the help they need,” the mayor said.
The Israeli military said it was “conducting precise, targeted and thorough searches” focused on the area of the two gunmen, who were killed in the gunfight.
It said the operation would last several days, in line with similar army actions after previous attacks.
However, Netanyahu suggested that bigger action was coming. His far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who is rising in polls ahead of Tuesday’s vote, has called on Israel to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that governs parts of the West Bank in cooperation with Israel under 1990s peace accords.
Asked if he agreed on destroying the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, said that he has rejected pressure from three US presidents to work to establish a Palestinian state.
“I will act to neutralize that threat by means I think are better left unspecified right now,” Netanyahu said of the Palestinian Authority in an interview with i24News conducted late on Friday.
There is no evidence that the Palestinian Authority had any involvement in Friday’s attack.
Referring to his attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Netanyahu said: “We transformed the Middle East. I said that we would change things and we have.”
“There is a very big surprise for the Palestinian Authority as well.”