WORLD
Israel launches major West Bank operation
Security forces were searching targets and questioning suspects.
HEBRON, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Israel’s military launched an operation in the occupied West Bank on Friday it said would last several days and include searches and building demolitions, after gunmen killed two soldiers days ahead of Israeli elections in which security has been a key focus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is locked in a tight race to keep his job in Tuesday’s vote, having campaigned on promises to keep Israelis safe, and he and his right-wing allies visited the scene of the attack to pledge an even harder line on West Bank militancy.
Security forces were searching targets and questioning suspects to “locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure” in the Hebron area from they said the attackers had emerged, according to a joint statement from the Israeli military and Shin Bet domestic security agency.
Forces were also “demolishing illegal structures that could pose a security threat at the site of the encounter,” they said, adding that “counterterrorism operations” were underway at dozens of locations.
The operation “is expected to continue for several days,” the statement, released late on Friday, said.
Militant group Hamas, without claiming responsibility, praised Friday’s fatal attack on two Israeli soldiers as a “heroic operation” and called on supporters to carry out more.
A Hebron-based Agence France-Presse photographer heading to another assignment witnessed the gun battle break out at the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint between the soldiers and two Palestinian men armed with a handgun and an automatic rifle.
Israeli forces eventually shot dead the attackers.
Netanyahu credited the soldiers with having “prevented what could have been a major attack,” and ordered a lockdown in the West Bank.
Visiting Hebron, the premier said he and Defense Minister Israel Katz were “considering a very extensive Israel Defense Force operation in Judea and Samaria, such as has not been carried out since” the 1967 war.
The first step would see Israeli forces “enter the neighborhood 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, he said, the scene of a large-scale operation launched in January 2025 that the United Nations said forcibly displaced thousands.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem called for urgent international pressure to prevent Israel from “plans for collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes.”