Netanyahu orders major West Bank offensive after Hebron attack

In short:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mount a major offensive to "destroy" parts of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

It comes after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint.

What's next?

Mr Netanyahu has also threatened to broaden the assault across the West Bank.

Benjamin Netanyahu has seized on an attack at a military checkpoint in Hebron, which killed two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen, to launch a major offensive in the city, with Israeli forces going house-to-house to "destroy" what he described as “terrorist infrastructure”.

The Israeli PM also threatened to broaden the assault across the West Bank to a scale "unlike any seen since the Six-Day War".

Mr Netanyahu also used the incident, which took place on Friday, to endorse the increasingly violent actions of "our heroic" Israeli settlers in the West Bank for "standing in the breach".

"You are a role model for the people of Israel, you are a role model for the State of Israel", he said, vowing an expansion of settlements regarded as illegal under international law at an even greater rate in the future.

Four days before the first Israeli election since catastrophic security failures led to the October 7 Hamas attack in 2023, the embatted PM arrived in Hebron at the scene of what had been a 20-minute gun battle between two Palestinian gunmen and security forces which killed two Israeli soldiers and injured three others. The two gunmen were also killed.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) immediately claimed that a large quantity of ammunition found in the attackers' car showed they had been planning a mass shooting of Israeli citizens.

Hamas issued a statement praising the actions of the two gunmen, identified by Israeli security forces as two 27-year-old members of the same family, Mohammad Jaaba and Firas Jaaba.

Israel's prime minister immediately ordered the sealing of the predominantly Palestinian city of Hebron and threatened the possible closure of the entire West Bank.

After cancelling planned election events, Mr Netanyahu arrived in Hebron to announce major retaliations in the neighbourhood where the attackers lived and warned that Israeli defence forces could broaden out their assault.

"We will implement the successful and aggressive offensive model we carried out in the refugee camps inside the cities — the IDF will enter the neighbourhoods from which the terrorists emerged, evacuate the residents, go house-to-house, and destroy the terrorist infrastructure", Mr Netanyahu, appearing in a flak jacket, said in Hebrew.

"We are prepared for a broad operation in Judea and Samaria [the Israeli name for the West Bank]."

"We warned a few weeks ago about attempts by our enemies to harm us, our citizens, and our soldiers ahead of the elections.

"That is what they tried to do here. IDF soldiers blocked this with their bodies and were also wounded. The soldiers not only stopped the terrorists but also charged heroically and eliminated them."

Mr Netanyahu's culpability for the security failures on October 7, 2023, his failure to act to get Israeli hostages back out of Gaza, and his refusal to allow a proper inquiry into the events that led to the biggest mass killing of Jews since the Holocaust are a central issue in the election campaign.

There has been considerable apprehension that any escalation of violence could be seized on to enhance his security credentials.

In Hebron, Mr Netanyahu said "we will act to destroy this place, to change it completely, but to do something that has not been done until now — we are going to implement the successful and aggressive model we used in the refugee camps, which are essentially terrorist strongholds".

In language that carried clear echoes of the devastation the IDF brought to Gaza after the October 7 attacks, Mr Netanyahu said "we will evacuate the residents, we will go house-to-house, we will also confiscate the weapons there, and all terrorist infrastructures will be dealt with and destroyed".

"At the same time, we are cordoning off the cities of Hebron and Halhul.

"We will consider expanding this model to other cities as well. We will clear out illegal houses along the routes at an accelerated pace. This threatens our forces."

The prime minister said that he and Defence Minister Israel Katz had reviewed "a very broad IDF operation in Judea and Samaria unlike any seen since the Six-Day War".

"The IDF is prepared to carry it out, and we will determine the timing, but it is on the way"he said.

Mr Netanyahu said he also wanted to say "a word about our heroic settlers".

"You are standing in the breach. You are a role model for the people of Israel, you are a role model for the State of Israel.

"We are going to destroy the terror infrastructures, and we are going to build the settlement infrastructures"