Israeli Forces Demolish Homes in Hebron After Soldiers Killed, Displacing Hundreds of Families

Bulldozers have been working through parts of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, and footage shared online shows at least one entire street that appears to have been flattened. The Israeli military has demolished homes and businesses there and, according to local officials, displaced hundreds of families. It has also cordoned off the city, sharply restricting the movement of its 200,000 residents.

The operation grew out of an attack on Friday, when two Palestinian gunmen struck an Israeli checkpoint and killed two Israeli soldiers. Three other soldiers were wounded, and both gunmen were killed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the response the same day, saying buildings around the site of the attack, and the neighbourhoods the two gunmen came from, would be destroyed.

The numbers differ depending on who is counting. Defence Minister Israel Katz said about 2,000 residents had been displaced, in an operation centred on the Ein Deir Baha and Farsh al-Hawa neighbourhoods. He said it targeted homes, businesses, industrial sites and infrastructure. He added that he believed the military planned to move a total of 2,500 people off roughly 0.35 square kilometres of urban land. The city's governor and deputy mayor said at least 200 families had been displaced.

The account of how it unfolded is stark. Dozens of families were forced to spend the night outside, and some were told to leave without taking their vehicles. Homes were marked for demolition with spray paint. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately answer the BBC's request for comment. In a statement on social media, it said it had dozens of targets across the West Bank and that operations would continue for several days.

Demolishing the homes of Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis is common practice for Israeli forces in the West Bank, and Israeli rights groups have criticised it as collective punishment. Netanyahu compared the Hebron operation to earlier ones in Palestinian refugee camps in the north of the territory, where in 2025 the military demolished hundreds of homes and displaced tens of thousands of people.

The timing is hard to separate from politics. Israel's general election is four days away, and Netanyahu has built his campaign on the promise of security. On Friday he cancelled his party's morning campaign events and went to Hebron in protective armour, posting a video from the scene. "We will evacuate the residents, go house to house, remove the weapons we find there, and deal with and destroy all terrorist infrastructure," he said. Hebron's mayor, Youssef al-Jaabari, told journalists the operation was "driven by the elections" and that Netanyahu and his ministers were trying to win the votes of the far right and the settlers.

Netanyahu also said he had reviewed plans for the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, without saying when it might happen. It is not clear whether the Hebron operation is part of those plans. In an interview with Israel's i24 channel, released Saturday, he threatened "a very big surprise" for the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the territory. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for a West Bank campaign "exactly like in Gaza or Lebanon," and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir urged that the Authority be dismantled.

The Palestinian Authority has called for urgent international action that goes beyond condemnation to prevent further forced displacement. With the military saying its operations will last days and the vote approaching, the figures on displacement are likely to keep changing.