Israel said on Sunday all land crossings with the West Bank will be closed on the day of next week’s election, as it pledged a harder line on militancy after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers in the territory.
The announcement came a day after Israeli forces pushed into the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and displaced around 2,000 residents, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying, “they will not be allowed to return … until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron”.
Hamas, while not claiming credit, hailed Friday’s killings at a checkpoint near the Palestinian city, in which attackers shot dead two Israeli soldiers and wounded three more.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to exact a heavy price for the attack just days before the polls and said he was planning an operation on a scale not seen since Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967.