While Israelis go to the polls this week in one of the most consequential elections in years, many Palestinians in the West Bank have been confined to their homes or neighbourhoods as a wave of Israeli military operations around Hebron continues. The West Bank city has been in a state of lockdown since two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at an army checkpoint at Hebron’s northern entrance on Friday, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding three. After the suspects were killed, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the isolation of Hebron and said troops would go house to house in the gunmen’s neighbourhood.
What followed has been a mass displacement operation in the Hebron area, echoing last year’s military expulsions of three refugee camps, alongside widespread destruction in the neighbourhoods targeted by the army, evoking scenes out of Gaza. During the weekend, soldiers ordered residents of al-Jalda and Ein Deir Baha neighbourhoods out by loudspeaker, according to residents. Thousands have been forced out of their homes already, with Defence Minister Israel Katz saying people would not be allowed back “until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron”.
By Monday, the governorate’s fourth day under closure, at least 3,171 Palestinians from 488 families had been forced out, according to Hebron Municipality data cited by the Wafa news agency. Hebron Governor Khaled Dudin said Israeli forces had searched more than 500 homes, arrested more than 70 people and fragmented the city with 128 closed gates and 120 checkpoints. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says the displaced include 127 infants, 81 pregnant women and 26 people with disabilities, and that at least 47 people have been detained in Hebron since Friday.
Bulldozers razed a three-apartment building belonging to Riyad Amrish, as well as a tile and ceramics factory, an auto-parts shop and other businesses in Farsh al-Hawa. Israel’s Channel 12 said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich ordered the demolitions. Israeli NGO B’Tselem warned the operation amounts to “collective punishment and acts that could constitute war crimes”.
But Hebron is only the most prominent of multiple sieges happening at different scales, with years-long efforts to strategically encircle Palestinian communities in the West Bank now being employed to devastating effect: The only Palestinians who can vote – Palestinian citizens of Israel – may face issues at the polls, too; Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu’s Likud party was preparing to challenge results from Arab polling stations before a vote had been cast. This year’s olive harvest has drawn unprecedented levels of settler pogroms, theft and closed-military-zone orders. The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission has counted 482 attacks on the harvest by Sunday across nine governorates, Wafa reported.
At the same time, Israel released nine of 10 settlers arrested following last week’s attacks on a foreign journalist and diplomats. The attacks have continued undeterred. Wafa reported 17 attacks on farmers and their property on Thursday, and the commission documented 21 in 12 hours on Friday.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
