Netanyahu announces ‘full lockdown’ of West Bank

JERUSALEM, Oct 23: Israeli PM Netanyahu says that after a situation assessment with several officials, including the head of the Shin Bet and the commander of Central Command, he has instructed the Israeli military and security forces to “immediately impose a closure on the city of Hebron”.

In a post on X, he added that he had instructed them to prepare for a “full lockdown” of the occupied West Bank starting from today.

Netanyahu says he is set to launch a military operation in the occupied West Bank unlike any other since 1967, when Israel seized control of the territory as well as East Jerusalem and Gaza.

“I have reviewed a very extensive operation in the West Bank that will be unprecedented since ’67, and we will choose the timing of its implementation,” Netanyahu said.

Israel also seized the Golan Heights in Syria, which it still occupies, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.

The move follows an early morning shooting at the northern entrance to Hebron.

The Israeli army has announced that two soldiers from its rescue unit brigade were killed during the Hebron attack.

In a post on Telegram, the army said Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman, and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, were killed and three additional soldiers from the battalion were lightly injured.

The soldiers were evacuated to receive medical treatment at a hospital, and their families have been notified, the post said.

Politicians have been arriving at the scene in Hebron, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has cancelled all the Likud’s campaign events and headed there.

It remains a very tense situation because in the next few minutes we are expecting a potential demolition of homes in the area around the attack.

There have been investigations opened by the Israeli forces, targeting the very existence of Palestinian journalists near the site.

There is also a siege here in Ramallah �" though the attack happened two hours away, now almost all entrances and exits of Ramallah are being closed.

As soon as news from the attack emerged, we started seeing Israeli soldiers restricting the movement of Palestinian and they are stopping them leave and entering.

This is part of Netanyahu’s occupied West Bank “full lockdown”.

Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti says Netanyahu is “adding insult to injury, and enhancing the actual complete and total closure of the West Bank, transforming every city, every little village into a small prison”.

“We’re talking about 1,300 military checkpoints, plus military gates, that besiege communities, prevent normal flow of people, prevent economic activity, prevent people from getting proper health care, and it destroys the educational system,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Palestinians in the West Bank are subjected to continuous terror; anybody can be attacked anywhere, either by settler terrorists or by Israeli soldiers.

“Palestinians have been unable to harvest their olive trees… they cannot reach even the land they own and the trees they have to harvest.

“What we see here is a war of terror on all Palestinians, and we’ve warned so many times that this will eventually lead to explosions because people are simply subjected to [a] terrible amount of collective punishment continuously,” he said.

The people ultimately responsible for today’s attack are the Israeli government, in particular four ministers: Netanyahu, Katz, Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Barghouti added.

Former Israeli ambassador AlonPinkas says he doesn’t think the situation in the occupied West Bank will affect Tuesday’s elections.

“Had this turned out, or transpired differently, meaning it would’ve involved multiple casualties on both sides, and Israeli soldiers being killed, and so on and so forth, then potentially it could’ve have some kind of effect,” Pinkas.�" AL JAZEERA