Israel demolishes homes in West Bank after fatal attack
· RTE.ieIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel would lock down Hebron in the West Bank, go house to house and demolish homes after the Israeli military said Palestinian attackers killed two soldiers at a military checkpoint near the city.
The Israeli military said it had killed two attackers, and another three soldiers had been lightly wounded in the attack.
In a visit to Hebron after the attack, Mr Netanyahu said Israeli forces would enter the neighbourhood of the attackers and displace its residents.
"We will evacuate the residents, we will go from house to house, we will also seize the weapons there, and all the terrorist infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed," Netanyahu said, according to his office.
"The defence minister and I are considering a very extensive IDF (army) operation in Judea and Samaria, such as has not been carried out since the Six Day War," Mr Netanyahu added, referring to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
"The IDF is ready to execute it and we will set the timing, but it is on the way."
He said the military would apply a model previously used in refugee camps in the northern West Bank. A large-scale military operation dubbed "Iron Wall" launched in January 2025 forcibly displaced tens of thousands of people across several refugee camps, according to the UN rights office.
As of July this year, 33,362 Palestinian refugees displaced from the three camps had not been permitted to return, according to the UN.
Nearly two years on, Israel's military remains present in Jenin refugee camp, which before Iron Wall was a bastion of armed Palestinian militants fighting Israeli occupation.
The army also remains in two refugee camps in the nearby city of Tulkarem.
In all three camps the army demolished dozens of houses in the dense patchwork of alleys in order to ease access for its troops and armoured vehicles, the military said, and set up operational centres for troops in the homes of residents.
"The Jenin refugee camp model is on its way to Hebron," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on social media.
"Every clan neighbourhood in Hebron from which the terrorists emerged today will be evacuated of its residents, and the terror infrastructure in the neighbourhood will be addressed and dismantled," he said, referring to the large families, or clans, that hold much influence in the city of Hebron.
Human Rights Watch later issued a report saying the mass expulsions amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel said in response to the report that it needed to demolish civilian infrastructure so that it could not be exploited by militants. It did not say when residents could return.
A Reuters reporter documented Israeli bulldozers beginning to demolish homes in Hebron near the site of the shooting.
Local residents said the homes had no connection to the attackers.
The demolitions began after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on social media that he had ordered the immediate demolition of Palestinian buildings near the attack site.
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and for all Palestinians in the West Bank to be banned from traveling by road.
The violence took place before an Israeli election next week in which Mr Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition have campaigned for expanding Israeli settlements and against the formation of a Palestinian state.
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The Hebron attack comes in an atmosphere of increasing tension in the West Bank as Israeli settler violence has surged in recent weeks.
In his speech following the attack, Mr Netanyahu praised Israeli settlers in the West Bank, calling them "heroic" and saying they were "standing in the breach".
Mr Netanyahu has presided over a rapid expansion of settlements.
UN bodies and most countries deem Israel's settlements on land occupied in war illegal under international law regarding military occupations.
Israel rejects this, viewing the territory as disputed rather than occupied.
Israeli strikes kill four in Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in Gaza in separate incidents yesterday, health officials in the enclave said.
In Gaza City, a strike on a car killed at least one person, medics said.
They earlier said there had been two deaths.
A crowd gathered around the burning wreckage, as orange-vested emergency crews sprayed it with water, photos from the scene showed.
Other strikes killed a Palestinian man on a bike in the southern city of Khan Younis and a man near Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and gunfire killed a woman near the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north, the medics added.
Israel's military said it had struck Hamas militants in Khan Younis, Nuseirat and Gaza City, but that it was not aware of the reported incident in Jabalia.
The Hamas-led Interior Ministry in Gaza said an Israeli airstrike killed a non-commissioned officer and wounded another officer from the drug control police department after hitting their vehicle while returning from an assignment in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood.
Israel, which says the Hamas militant group has been rearming and launching attacks in violation of a year-old ceasefire, has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks.
Hamas has denied trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal and accuses Israel of undermining the Gaza peace deal.
Last year's US-brokered ceasefire calls for eventual reconstruction of the territory.
But little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops.
Israeli airstrikes have continued.
At least 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, according to the territory's health officials, while Israel says four soldiers have been killed.
Palestinian authorities say more than 74,000 people have been killed in Israel's assault on Gaza, launched after Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel three years ago.