Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out collective punishment against a Palestinian neighbourhood in the city of Hebron after an attack on an Israeli army checkpoint in the occupied West Bank killed two soldiers.
Speaking during a visit to the city with Defence Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu said: "First of all, we will act to destroy this place, to change it completely."
"But we are going to do something that has not been done until now: We will implement the successful and aggressive model we used in the refugee camps, which are essentially terrorist strongholds," he added, according to the Times of Israel.
Netanyahu's comments refer to Israel's policy of forcibly expelling thousands of Palestinians from several northern West Bank refugee camps, including Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, that occurred in early 2025, with around 33,000 being expelled.
Laying out the plan for the neighbourhood, Netanyahu said: "We will evacuate the residents, we will go house to house, we will remove the weapons there as well, and all the terrorist infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed."
He added that the Israeli military would carry out a major operation in the occupied West Bank, the largest since it first occupied the area following the 1967 war when it first took control of the area.
The announcement comes in response to the killing of two Israeli soldiers and wounding three others at an Israeli army checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, with two Palestinian gunmen also killed in the incident.
Israel Katz confirmed Netanyahu's comments, saying "the Jenin refugee camp model arrives in Hebron."
The attack comes days before Israel's Knesset elections that could see the formation of a new government, with polling suggesting that both the pro-Netanyahu and opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot are both under the threshold to form a majority government, with many politicians putting out statements on the incident.
Zizette Darkazally, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme, told The New Arab that the reactions from Israel's politicians confirm the preexisting positions that they already held.
This includes Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister who also oversees Israel's military occupation in the West Bank, who announced he had already ordered the destruction of several buildings near the site of the shooting, and approved new farms in the area of Masafer Yatta, where Palestinian residents have long fought against Israeli attempts to destroy Palestinian homes.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also weighed in, again calling for the government to dismantle the Palestinian Authority that governs parts of the West Bank, while opposition politicians Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, and Yair Golan praised the Israeli military's response.
Darkazally said that Netanyahu's announced policies were an attempt to exploit the attack to gain more votes and further his self-proclaimed image as 'Mr Security', but that it's unlikely to change the base of voters between the two blocs.
"I don't think the attack will change votes of the base in any of the two blocs," she said, adding, "most of the 'undecided' at this stage are undecided within the same camp, meaning that they are undecided between parties in the same bloc", Darkazally said.
‘Restrictions on top of restrictions’
Restrictions announced by Netanyahu have immediately come into effect, according to Amir Daoud, Director of Publishing and Documentation at the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, who told The New Arab that the city has been cordoned off, with preparations for wider closures occurring across the West Bank.
Hebron is the largest city in the occupied West Bank, with 250,000 Palestinians calling it home.
Daoud noted that these restrictions come on top of the plethora of restrictions, checkpoints, and barriers that are already in place across the area that impede freedom of movement for its three million Palestinian residents.
"According to the latest figures documented by the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, there were 942 movement obstacles across the West Bank as of September 2026," he said, adding that "these restrictions have transformed Palestinian movement between cities, villages and communities into a process controlled by Israeli military decisions."
Israel's ever-tightening policies in the occupied West Bank have occurred in conjunction with its expansion of settlements and parallel infrastructure allowing them freedom of movement across the territory.
The policy, which rights groups have labelled apartheid, comes alongside an uptick in settler terror attacks against Palestinians that have escalated dramatically since the start of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Daoud said that the restrictions mean Palestinians will be unable to reach their jobs or get medical treatment, with farmers losing access to land and markets to sell produce. This is set to impact the olive harvest season, already disrupted by widespread settler violence.
Medical Aid for Palestinians warned on Friday that, following announced restrictions and an Israeli military escalation in the occupied West Bank, its staff are reporting increased obstacles to reaching Palestinians in need of care.
The aid group noted that settler attacks in the village of Umm Safa, north of Ramallah, illustrate the risks posed to Palestinians amid the heightened security.
Aseel Baidoun, the group's Deputy Director of Advocacy and Communications in the West Bank, warned that both settler attacks and ministerial threats of collective punishment and forcible displacement meant "the risk of atrocity crimes is acute."
There is also a risk of these measures becoming permanent, adding to the layers of restrictions that already impact life in the occupied West Bank.
"Our concern is that measures initially introduced as temporary security responses frequently become prolonged restrictions or are incorporated into the existing system of military control," Daoud told The New Arab.
“From our perspective, the fundamental issue is the cumulative effect of these measures,” he said, adding, “what we are witnessing is not merely a temporary interruption of movement, but the continued consolidation of a system in which freedom of movement is increasingly treated as an exception rather than a basic right.”