Closures Extend Through Election Day
Israel's military announced that land crossings between Israel and the West Bank would stay shut through Tuesday's parliamentary election, with Palestinian workers barred from entering Israeli communities in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley for employment. The army said the restrictions on entry and exit would hold until polling day, which it identified as October 27. The measures followed a deadly shooting near Hebron on Friday in which Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others; the military said the two suspected attackers were also killed.[S2]
The closures came as Israeli forces pressed a large-scale operation across the territory. The military reported activity in more than 400 locations over the weekend and said it had arrested 40 Palestinians accused of ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A separate account put the number of areas searched on Friday and Saturday at 40, with residents describing soldiers announcing evacuations through loudspeakers late at night. Hamas praised the Hebron attack but did not say it carried it out.[S1][S2]
Hebron Residents Forced From Homes
In Hebron, the municipality said more than 2,200 people, among them nearly 200 children under 18, had been displaced since the raids began on Friday. Mayor Yousef Zuhair Al-Jabari said every entrance and exit to the city had remained sealed, with the operation concentrated in Deir Bahha and an area called Al-Jalda. He described residents as unable to reach the city, enter it, or leave, and said the blockade had touched every part of daily life.[S1]
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the figure of roughly 2,200 displaced, telling Israeli broadcaster Kan that selected army units were operating in the area and that Palestinians would not be allowed back until the military had finished addressing what he called all the Hamas issues in Hebron. In the Ein Deir Baha neighborhood, an AFP correspondent found vacated buildings marked with X's, empty streets aside from a few military vehicles, and Israeli flags draped on a house apparently taken over by troops.[S2]
Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, a 70-year-old shopkeeper with a senior role in the neighborhood, told AFP that soldiers woke him at 1 a.m. and told him to leave, giving him only a short time to pack. He said other residents faced far greater difficulty departing.[S2]
Attack Reshapes Final Days of Campaign
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking another term in Tuesday's vote, vowed to exact a heavy price for the attack and said Israel would act to destroy the site. He argued that warnings had been issued weeks earlier about enemy attempts to harm Israelis and soldiers before the election. The vote is widely viewed as a referendum on his leadership and on the security policies pursued across three years of war, and he faces pressure to show force for voters focused on safety.[S1][S2]
Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who also holds a defense portfolio responsible for civilian matters in the West Bank, stated that he gave the order to tear down a line of structures he described as illegal in the territory right after Friday's shooting, and cautioned that anyone harming Israelis would face severe consequences. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah reports 112 Palestinians killed this year, with six Israelis dying in West Bank attacks during the same span. About 3 million Palestinians and 540,000 Israeli settlers reside in the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war; Hebron is the sole city where settlers live within a crowded Palestinian population under military guard.[S1][S2]
