Netanyahu Orders Eviction of 250,000 Hebron Residents After Checkpoint Attack
Israeli officials launched demolitions and a siege in Hebron following the killing of two soldiers, prompting legal challenges over collective punishment.
By Carolina Wood ·
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a siege on the West Bank city of Hebron and the nearby town of Halhul following a checkpoint shootout that left two Israeli soldiers dead and three wounded. Netanyahu ordered that residents of the neighborhoods where the gunmen were from be forced out of their homes. He stated that plans were drawn up for the largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967, though no specific date has been set.
The campaign of collective punishment began within hours of the attack. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted a video of himself standing before a bulldozer as it demolished a Palestinian home near the scene of the firefight. Smotrich described the demolition of the unpermitted structure as a way to create deterrence and exact a price. Officials did not claim a link between the building's owners and the two men who carried out the attack.
Defence Minister Israel Katz expanded the scope of the response, promising further mass demolitions and forced displacement. Katz compared the situation in Hebron to the treatment of the Jenin refugee camp, where nearly 20,000 people have been displaced. He stated that every clan neighborhood from which terrorists emerged would be evacuated. Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank, with a population of approximately 250,000.
Legal challenges emerged quickly to halt the destruction. Shortly after the first demolition began, Israel's high court issued a temporary order stopping the work. Human rights lawyer Mohammed Dahleh filed an urgent petition on behalf of two factory owners. He argued that the actions breached international law regarding collective punishment and Israeli administrative law, calling the moves an attempt to copy illegal practices from Gaza.
Michael Sfard, a prominent Israeli lawyer, characterized Smotrich's public statement as a direct admission that the demolitions constituted collective punishment. He noted that deterrence has historically served as a justification for such measures. The legal dispute highlights the tension between the government's immediate security response and established judicial precedents in the West Bank.
The attack was executed by two men armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. They were driving a car with Israeli number plates when soldiers stopped them at a temporary checkpoint. A gunfight lasting 20 minutes ensued, resulting in the deaths of both attackers. An AFP photographer witnessed the exchange while traveling to another assignment, a detail that later fueled conspiracy theories linking him to the gunmen.
The Foreign Press Association described those claims as dangerous and defamatory, noting the photographer was a longtime professional. This incident followed one where photographer Heidi Levine was severely injured by settlers during the olive harvest. The surge in violence has coincided with the late September harvest, during which more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October 2023.
