Hebron Homes Seized After Checkpoint Attack Kills Two Soldiers

A gun attack at an Israeli military checkpoint in Hebron on Friday killed two soldiers, and the city has been at the center of the campaign for Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition since. The coalition is narrowly trailing with two days of campaigning left before Tuesday's vote. Netanyahu and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich visited the city and promised retribution; Netanyahu warned of military operations on a scale the West Bank has not seen in nearly 60 years of occupation.

Hebron, home to 250,000 people, was sealed off within hours of the attack. The Farsh al-Hawa neighborhood, nearest the checkpoint, was flattened; by Sunday morning, an industrial area that held car workshops, a ceramics plant, and other businesses was rubble. Bulldozers worked there while Ein Deir Baha, a district a few kilometers away, was emptied. Ein Deir Baha was allegedly home to at least one of the two attackers, both of whom were killed at the scene.

Fahed Ahmaro, imam of the local mosque, said he was woken around midnight by loudspeakers on patrolling military vehicles ordering homeowners to leave immediately for their own safety. Thirty members of his family lived in the house. He took his mother and some grandchildren to his daughter's home elsewhere in Hebron. As he went back to collect belongings, a neighbor told him the army had blown up the gates. "You don't know what you have until you lose it," Ahmaro said.

The Hebron municipality said 370 families, nearly 2,000 people, were displaced during the sweep through Ein Deir Baha. The Israeli army said residents left voluntarily and that civilians who wished to evacuate were permitted to leave temporarily. Ahmaro rejected that account. "Never, never, never. Why should I leave my house?" he said. Abdul Halim al-Tamimi, 77, said military arrived at 1.30am and gave his family 10 minutes to leave. He said an intelligence officer warned that refusal would lead to displacement "the way it was done in Gaza." The family left at 3am Saturday. By Sunday morning, their villa carried large Israeli flags and served as an army headquarters.

The army said about 2,000 local people belonged to the Jaba'a clan, from which the gunmen were allegedly drawn, and described it as associated with Hamas. Residents said the clan numbers 150 people at most and has no known reputation for radicalism. Tamimi said his family is from a different clan and suggested the operation might serve election publicity. By Sunday evening, all roads in and out of the city remained closed to cars behind steel barriers, with pedestrians passing through checkpoints. Hebron's mayor, Yousef al-Jabari, called the measures collective punishment. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank cannot vote on Tuesday.