HEBRON: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a military operation in the occupied West Bank on a scale unseen in decades after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers on Friday in an attack near Hebron days before national elections.
A first step would see residents displaced, homes searched and "terrorist infrastructure" destroyed, said the premier, who is in the midst of a tight race for a new term in Tuesday's vote.
Militant group Hamas, without claiming responsibility, praised the attack as a "heroic operation" and called on supporters to carry out more.
A Hebron-based AFP photographer who was en route to another assignment witnessed a gun battle break out Friday morning at the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint near the West Bank city of Hebron between soldiers and two Palestinian men armed with a handgun and an automatic rifle.
Israeli forces eventually shot and killed the attackers, with the AFP journalist seeing the gunmen's lifeless bodies on the ground next to a petrol station as troops patrolled all around.
The army later said two of its soldiers "fell in combat in the Judea Junction" area near Hebron, with three others wounded. Rescuers had previously said five people were wounded, two of them seriously.
Netanyahu lauded the soldiers' response, crediting them with having "prevented what could have been a major attack", and ordered a lockdown in the West Bank.
He added that troops were "carrying out stepped-up operations to thwart terrorist activities and are conducting large-scale waves of arrests".
Visiting Hebron later in the day, the premier said he and defence minister Israel Katz were "considering a very extensive IDF (army) operation in Judea and Samaria, such as has not been carried out since" the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in which Israel first occupied the Palestinian territory.
"The IDF is ready to execute it, and we will set the timing, but it is on the way," he added.
A first operation 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 said the military would apply a model previously used in refugee camps in the northern West Bank, the scene of a large-scale operation launched in January 2025 that the UN said forcibly displaced thousands.
With the clock counting down to election day, Netanyahu ordered all Likud party political events to be cancelled on Friday.
'Exactly like in Gaza'
The military said it had "launched offensive counter-terrorism operations in the Hebron area", adding that troops were raiding homes of the suspects and others.
Prior to Netanyahu's announcement, far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich had called for a fresh military offensive in the West Bank "exactly like in Gaza".
"There is no other option but a comprehensive military campaign in Judea and Samaria to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, collect weapons and eliminate terrorists," said Smotrich, who also holds a position within the defence ministry.
"In the next government this will be one of the first measures that we must demand and apply."
He later said he had "ordered the immediate demolition of a wide row of illegal Arab structures adjacent to the attack site".
National security minister and far-right firebrand Itamar Ben Gvir also called for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to be "dismantled and demilitarised, and its terror infrastructure wiped out completely".
No evidence suggests that the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was connected to Friday's attack.
Hamas praises attack
Hamas, which carried out the Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war, hailed Friday's shooting and mourned the dead assailants.
The Gaza-based group, a rival of the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah faction, called the shooting a "natural and legitimate response to the ongoing crimes and brutal attacks against our people".
It called on supporters to "mobilise fully and turn the land into a fire beneath the feet of the invaders".
Netanyahu vowed to "pursue Hamas terrorists" everywhere, adding, "You have no place to hide."
Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief who is Netanyahu's top rival in the election, also praised the response by troops and said he was praying "for the complete and quick recovery of the injured".
The incident comes as tensions soar in the West Bank, including over attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian olive harvesters.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 1,113 Palestinians in the territory since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israeli figures show at least 49 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations during the same period.