Why is Israel launching a new military operation in the occupied West Bank?

Israel’s subject has launched different large cognition successful the occupied West Bank, during which it plans to transportation retired wide arrests, demolish homes and forcibly displace residents.

The cognition comes aft an onslaught astatine an Israeli subject checkpoint adjacent Hebron connected Friday successful which 2 Israeli soldiers were killed. The 2 suspected Palestinian gunmen were changeable dead.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered a afloat lockdown of the West Bank, said Israeli forces would spell house-to-house successful the Hebron neighbourhood that the suspected attackers came from.

“We volition enactment to destruct this place, ⁠to alteration it completely,” helium said.

Israeli rights radical B’Tselem warned the Israeli government’s planned violative amounts to “collective punishment and acts that could represent warfare crimes”.

Here’s what we cognize astir the Israeli subject operation.

What’s happening successful the West Bank?

Israel’s subject announced precocious connected Friday that a large “counterterrorism” operation, involving Israeli soldiers, constabulary and different information agents, was nether mode successful the Hebron country of the occupied West Bank.

It said the “targeted” run would past “several days”, successful summation to operations successful “dozens” of different areas crossed the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said Israeli forces would spell “house-to-house” successful the Hebron neighbourhood wherever the suspects progressive successful Friday’s onslaught came from, replicating tactics antecedently used successful exile camps successful the bluish West Bank. The cognition volition impact demolitions and forced displacement, helium said.

By Saturday morning, Israeli forces had raided astatine slightest 15 towns successful the bluish West Bank, including Nablus, Jenin, Tubas and Qalqilya, arresting dozens of Palestinians, Al Jazeera correspondents reported.

On Saturday, videos posted connected Telegram by Palestinians successful the al-Jalda country of Hebron metropolis showed Israeli soldiers lasting defender and subject vehicles, buying trolleys and different objects blocking the roads.

Israeli forces successful the country had besides sent successful a bulldozer that could beryllium seen alongside different Israeli subject vehicles.

Earlier, Israeli bulldozers wrecked a three-storey gathering successful Hebron, portion ordering hundreds of Palestinian families to permission their homes successful the Ein Deir Bahha country of the metropolis and its surroundings.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah successful the West Bank, said determination was “a batch of anxiety” successful the occupied territory arsenic radical mostly avoided going into the streets.

Why has Israel locked down the West Bank?

The measurement is a response to Friday’s onslaught astatine an Israeli checkpoint adjacent Hebron.

But it besides takes spot conscionable days earlier Israel’s predetermination connected Tuesday, during which Israel had already been readying to fastener down the occupied territory, reported The Times of Israel.

During the lockdown, Netanyahu said Israeli troops would behaviour “extensive waves of arrests” and prosecute Hamas fighters “wherever they are and astatine each times”.

The cognition comes amid signs that Israel and its state the United States are preparing for a imaginable caller question of attacks connected Iran.

According to The New York Times, the US and Israel person drafted plans for a run of attacks connected Iran that would instrumentality spot aft the US midterm elections connected November 3.

Citing unnamed US officials and different informed sources, The New York Times reported that the US and Israel person intensified drills for a “a abbreviated but intensive operation” against Iran, with imaginable targets to see the country’s “energy infrastructure, atomic facilities, and rocket and drone arsenal”.

US President Donald Trump appeared to corroborate connected Friday that the US was weighing a caller subject run against Iran. Speaking astatine a rally, Trump said, “We whitethorn bash different small epic fury,” utilizing the codename of the US-Israel warfare against Iran that started with attacks crossed the state connected February 28.

How person attacks connected Palestinians escalated successful caller weeks?

Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinians successful the occupied West Bank person been rife successful caller weeks, coinciding with the yearly olive harvest season.

On Thursday, the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said it had recorded 409 attacks by Israeli forces oregon settlers against Palestinian farmers, their land, olive trees and cultivation instrumentality truthful acold during October. It called the attacks portion of a signifier of “direct unit to unit farmers from their land”.

Visiting Western officials person besides recovered themselves caught up successful the violence.

On October 17, Israeli settlers assaulted European diplomats, including a French mayor, adjacent the Palestinian colony of Taybeh successful the occupied West Bank arsenic they visited Palestinian olive farmers. Then connected Wednesday, US Democratic legislature campaigner Brad Lander was concisely detained by the Israeli subject portion volunteering to assistance Palestinian farmers harvest olives.

What has the effect been to Israel’s West Bank operation?

The cognition has been cheered connected by far-right Israeli officials, but criticised by the United Nations and quality rights watchdogs.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who besides holds a presumption wrong Israel’s Ministry of Defence wherever helium oversees the medication of the occupied West Bank and its settlements, called for Israel’s large-scale violative successful the West Bank to proceed “exactly similar successful Gaza”.

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to beryllium “dismantled” and for tighter restrictions connected Palestinian movement.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich visits the country of the earlier occurrence speech astatine a checkpoint adjacent Hebron successful the Israeli-occupied West Bank, October 23, 2026 [AFP]

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, said incitement from far-right Israeli ministers was making the concern worse.

He told Al Jazeera the West Bank lockdown was turning each metropolis and colony into “a tiny prison”, a signifier of corporate punishment that would “lead to explosions”.

Mayy El Sheikh, spokesperson for the UN’s Human Rights Office successful the occupied Palestinian territory, said Israel’s determination to fastener down the West Bank marked “yet different occurrence successful a never-ending watercourse of suffocating measures making beingness much and much unbearable for Palestinians”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, done his spokesperson, besides expressed interest astir West Bank closures that would restrict Palestinians’ “access to basal services and livelihoods”.

B’Tselem sounded the alarm implicit Israeli “plans for corporate punishment and acts that could represent warfare crimes”.

“The satellite cannot basal by arsenic Israel continues its battle connected Palestinians, waiting for yet much neighbourhoods to beryllium emptied and erased earlier intervening, contempt what we person already witnessed successful Gaza and the bluish West Bank,” said the rights group.