Israel to Close All West Bank Land Crossings on Election Day After Hebron Attack

On Sunday, the Israeli military announced that every land crossing between Israel and the West Bank would be shut for Tuesday's parliamentary election. The order came two days after a shooting near Hebron that killed two Israeli soldiers, and it arrived in the middle of a widening military operation across the territory.

The Israel Defense Forces said that starting Sunday, Palestinians would not be allowed to enter Israeli communities in what it called Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley for work. Those are terms many in Israel use for the occupied West Bank. The army also said it would enforce a ban on Palestinian workers entering and exiting, and close all land crossings throughout Election Day, October 27.

The attack itself happened on Friday, when Palestinian gunmen struck near Hebron. According to the IDF, two soldiers were killed and three others wounded, and the two suspected attackers were also killed. Hamas praised the attack but did not claim responsibility for it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Israel would exact a heavy price. The timing is delicate for him: the vote is days away, and he faces a difficult fight to win a new term. After the shooting, he said the response so far would be followed by an operation on a scale not seen since Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967.

The army said it had been active in 40 areas across the West Bank on Friday and Saturday. Residents reported that soldiers used loudspeakers late at night to announce evacuations. Israeli forces said they had detained about 40 suspects, including people they described as militants tied to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The heaviest burden has fallen on Hebron. Mayor Yousef al-Jabari told Al Jazeera that about 2,200 people had been forced from their homes since the raids began Friday. Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that figure in an interview with the Israeli broadcaster Kan. He said selected army units were operating there and that Palestinians would not be allowed back until the army finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right figure who also holds a Defense Ministry role overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank, said he had personally ordered the immediate demolition of a row of illegal structures after the shooting. On social media he wrote that anyone who messes with Israel will quickly understand that he will pay a painful price.

AFP described the scene in Ein Deir Baha, a Hebron neighborhood, where emptied buildings were marked with X's and the streets were deserted apart from a few military vehicles. Israeli flags hung on a house that troops appeared to have taken over. Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, a 70-year-old shopkeeper with a senior role in the neighborhood, said soldiers woke him at 1 a.m., told him to leave, and gave him little time to pack. Others had it harder, he said: his wife's 90-year-old mother is ill and had to be carried out. In his view, the operation is happening because Netanyahu wants to win the election with the blood of the Palestinian people.

Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister, but his reputation as a security-first leader was badly damaged by the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed. Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza has left more than 73,000 Palestinians dead, many of them civilians. With the crossings closing and the Hebron operation continuing, what to watch is how large the promised operation becomes before voters go to the polls Tuesday.