Israel said Sunday all land crossings with the West Bank will be closed on the day of next week’s election, as it pledged a harder line on militancy after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers in the territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to exact a heavy price for the attack just days before polls and said he was planning an operation on a scale not seen since Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967. The Israeli army said that over Friday and Saturday, it operated in 40 areas throughout the territory, with locals reporting that soldiers announced evacuations over loudspeakers late at night.
The announcement came a day after Israel i forces pushed into the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and displaced around 2,000 residents, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying, “they will not be allowed to return… until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron”. The Israeli army said that, from Sunday, Palestinians would “not be permitted to enter Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley for work”, using terms many in Israel use to refer to the West Bank. Right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a position in the defence ministry overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank, said he personally ordered “the immediate demolition of a row of illegal structures” following Friday’s shooting.
Israel’s longest serving prime minister Netanyahu is facing a tight race for a new term in Tuesday’s polls, with his security-first reputation all but shattered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
The army also said it would enforce “a ban on the entry and exit of Palestinian workers throughout Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, including industrial zones, as well as the closure of all land crossings throughout Election Day” on October 27, it added.
