Israel to close all land crossings with West Bank on election day

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.

The announcement came a day after Israeli 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”.

Hamas, while not claiming credit, hailed Friday’s killings at a checkpoint near the Palestinian city, in which attackers shot dead two Israeli soldiers and wounded three more.

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, 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.

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.

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 Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that governs parts of the West Bank in cooperation with Israel, called for international pressure on Israel to protect residents affected by the military operation.

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.

Israeli forces said they “apprehended approximately 40 suspects, including terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations”.

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