Israel orders Hebron cordon and West Bank closure preparations after two soldiers are killed; High Court halts initial demolitions

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered security forces on Friday 23 October to cordon off the city of Hebron and neighbouring Halhul and prepare for a full closure of the occupied West Bank after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a shooting outside Hebron, the Associated Press and The Guardian reported. Hours after bulldozers began tearing down a Palestinian building near the site of the gun battle, Israel’s High Court of Justice issued a temporary order halting the demolitions.

Neither side’s claims can be independently confirmed.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), two men driving a car with Israeli licence plates opened fire with an M16 assault rifle and a handgun after being stopped by soldiers at a temporary checkpoint near the Yehuda Junction outside Hebron on Friday morning. The military said soldiers killed both gunmen after a 20-minute firefight and prevented a “terror attack against Israeli civilians”, AP reported. The IDF identified the two soldiers killed as Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, and said at least three other people were injured, according to The Jerusalem Post and The Guardian.

Netanyahu and ministers announce Hebron operation and demolitions

Visiting the area on Friday ahead of Israel’s general election on Tuesday 27 October, Netanyahu announced a siege of Hebron and Halhul and said plans had been drawn up for what he described as the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, The Guardian reported. He said no date had yet been set for that wider operation “but it is on the way”, and pledged house demolitions, the forced evacuation of residents from the attackers’ home neighbourhoods and the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Defence Minister Israel Katz compared the planned measures in Hebron—a city of about 250,000 Palestinians—to Israeli operations in Gaza, Lebanon and the Jenin refugee camp, where nearly 20,000 residents have been displaced. “The Jenin refugee camp model arrives in Hebron. Every clan neighbourhood in Hebron from which the terrorists emerged today will be evacuated of its residents. Just like in Gaza, just like in Lebanon,” Katz said, according to The Guardian. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also travelled to Hebron on Friday and called for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and tighter restrictions on Palestinian movement.

Within hours of the shooting, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted a video of himself standing in front of a bulldozer as it demolished a Palestinian home built without Israeli permits near the site of the clash, saying the demolition was intended to “create deterrence and exact a price”, The Guardian reported. Israeli authorities did not claim any connection between the building’s owners and the two gunmen, the newspaper reported.

High Court issues temporary halt after legal petition

Shortly after the demolitions began, Israel’s High Court of Justice granted a temporary injunction stopping further destruction after human rights lawyer Mohammed Dahleh filed an urgent petition on behalf of two nearby factory owners, arguing that the demolitions violated Israeli administrative law and international law prohibitions on collective punishment, The Guardian reported.

“What we saw today was an attempt to copy the illegal practices used in Gaza, in the heart of the West Bank,” Dahleh told The Guardian. Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard said Smotrich’s video statement amounted to a “direct admission” that the demolitions constituted collective punishment.

Separately on Friday, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) rejected accusations shared by far-right Israeli figures, including a candidate for the Amcha Yisrael party, who alleged without evidence that an Agence France-Presse photographer who witnessed and photographed the gunfight had been tipped off in advance. “He is a longtime professional who was on his way to another assignment and courageously documented what he saw in keeping with his professional duties,” the FPA said in a statement, calling the claims “dangerous and defamatory”.

Background: The shooting took place four days before Israel’s 27 October parliamentary election, in which voters will decide whether to return Netanyahu’s coalition to office. According to figures cited by The Guardian, more than 1,100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, and tensions have risen during the annual olive harvest that began in late September.

See also: Belgium and France condemn settler attack on European diplomats in occupied West Bank and Netanyahu says a future US president could be ‘very hostile’ to Israel and vows to bring down Iran’s government.