IDF op in Hebron after soldiers’ killing said to displace 1,500; PM vows ‘big surprise’ for PA

An ongoing Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Hebron displaced some 1,500 Palestinians from their homes as of Saturday, according to local reports, following a shooting attack in which two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers in the area on Friday.

According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing Hebron Governor Khaled Dudin, the operation has displaced more than 200 families since Friday, with dozens forced to spend the night outside. The Hebron governorate declared a state of emergency in the city and was forming a crisis management committee to assist displaced families, the report said.

Hebron Mayor Youssef al-Jaabari told WAFA that Israeli forces were seeking to displace another 2,500 people from two areas in the city.

The military said troops were operating in the Hebron neighborhood where the two gunmen, Mohammad Jaaba and Firas Jaaba, lived. According to IDF assessments, some 2,000 residents of the area are members of the Jaaba clan, which it said is affiliated with Hamas.

The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that Palestinian civilians who “requested to evacuate” were allowed to leave the area temporarily through designated checkpoints after a security screening.

So far, the army said troops have scanned some 200 sites in Hebron, where no weapons were found, and apprehended 10 suspects for questioning.

The military said Friday that the operation in Hebron was expected to last several days and was “focused and limited to the area from which the terrorists operated.” Both gunmen were killed in Friday’s gunfight.

Palestinian residents living in the area where the troops were operating will be able to leave through three designated exit points, following questioning and security checks, the army said Friday, adding that “anyone who raises suspicion during the checks will be taken for questioning by security forces.”

In the neighborhood of Ein Dir Baha, nestled between two hills, buildings were marked by X’s showing they had been cleared of people.

The streets in the area were deserted of people and cars except for a pair of Israeli military vehicles, with an Israeli flag draped on a house apparently taken over by troops.

Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, 70, a shopkeeper who sells live chickens and feed and plays a leadership role in the neighborhood, said the army woke him up at 1 a.m. and told him and other residents to leave.

He had only two hours to pack just clothes and his official papers. Many families had no vehicles and tried to find ways to stay with relatives elsewhere.

Tamimi accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of carrying out the operation for political gain, days before Tuesday’s national election.

The operation, he argued, was only happening “because Netanyahu wants to win” the election.

“He wants to win it with the blood of the Palestinian people,” he said. “But we won’t go anywhere.”

As part of the ongoing operation, buildings and structures near the site of Friday’s deadly shooting were razed by Israeli authorities over the weekend.

The structures were illegally built in Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank, where Israel has not given Palestinians building permits in years.

The army said the sites were being removed because they are illegal and due to the “security risks that they may pose.”

In Friday’s attack, the two Palestinian gunmen used buildings near a temporary IDF checkpoint as cover to open fire on troops, killing two soldiers and wounding three in a gunfight that lasted for more than 20 minutes, before soldiers killed both attackers.

The slain soldiers were named as Staff Sgt. Ron Yonatan Roytman, 23, from Ashkelon, and Sgt. Yuval Shai Svilem, 20, from Hod Hasharon.

After conducting a preliminary probe, the Israel Defense Forces said it believed the gunmen were planning to carry out a larger attack against Israeli civilians on a nearby road, but realized they would not be able to reach the highway and decided to open fire at the temporary checkpoint instead.

On Friday, Netanyahu said Israel would “destroy” the Hebron neighborhood from which the gunmen hailed, implementing the “successful and aggressive model we used in the refugee camps, which are essentially terrorist strongholds.”

Forces have been operating in several so-called refugee camps — in effect small towns — in the northern West Bank since last year, preventing the return of tens of thousands of residents to what the military said were terror hotbeds.

So far, around a third of Hebron has been targeted, Governor Dudin told AFP.

“They started in the neighborhood from which the people who carried out the attack came, but there is no guarantee that the operation will not expand,” he said.

“This amounts to collective punishment being imposed on civilians who have nothing at all to do with this,” he said.

“We will find them shelter and provide these people with all the help they need,” Mayor Jaabari told AFP.

Netanyahu promises ‘surprise’

Netanyahu signaled that a larger military campaign could be coming, telling i24 News in an interview late Friday that a “big surprise” was in the works for the Palestinian Authority.

His far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who was rising in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s vote, has called on Israel to dismantle the PA, the semi-autonomous body that governs parts of the West Bank in cooperation with Israel under 1990s peace accords.

Asked if he agreed on destroying the PA, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, boasted that he has rejected pressure from three US presidents to work to establish a Palestinian state.

“I will act to neutralize that threat by means I think are better left unspecified right now,” Netanyahu said of the PA.

Netanyahu had said on Friday that the IDF had drawn up plans for “a very broad IDF operation in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], the likes of which have not been done since the Six-Day War. The IDF is ready to carry it out, and we will determine the timing, but it is on its way.”

Referring to his attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Netanyahu said: “We transformed the Middle East. I said that we would change things and we have.”

“There is a very big surprise for the Palestinian Authority as well.”

There is no evidence that the PA had any involvement in Friday’s attack. Netanyahu has linked the assailants to Hamas, the terror group responsible for the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history.

Hamas, while not claiming credit, hailed Friday’s attack and called on Palestinians to carry out more of them.

Settler violence escalates amid olive harvest

The deadly shooting and subsequent military operation come amid rising tensions across the West Bank, as extremist Israeli settlers have ramped up attacks and seizures of Palestinian land.

Rights group Yesh Din reported 672 incidents of settler violence over the past 26 days, nearly half related to the olive harvest, an annual event with cultural resonance to Palestinians that extremist settlers have sought to disrupt.

Several Palestinian farmers were injured in a settler attack west of Hebron early Saturday morning, according to Palestinian media reports.

According to WAFA, extremist settlers attacked workers at a cactus farm in Khirbet Suba, a hamlet west of Hebron.

Sources quoted by the outlet said several Palestinians were injured in the attack, and that Israeli forces initially prevented ambulances from reaching the area to treat the wounded.

The report did not specify how many people were injured or the severity of their wounds.

Meanwhile, five Italian activists detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank while accompanying Palestinian farmers collecting olives returned to Italy on Saturday, Italy’s Foreign Ministry said.

The five were detained on Thursday, with Israel saying the activists were in an area where there had been no prior authorization from security forces for farming activity.

During a visit to Istanbul on Friday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called the detention “unacceptable,” saying the activists had “committed no crime.”

Italy’s Foreign Ministry said the activists met with a consular official before departing Israel and were found to be “in good physical condition.”

Israel has faced growing international criticism over violence during the olive harvest, with rights groups documenting multiple attacks and other disruptions each day by settlers against Palestinians.