Israeli forces began demolishing buildings in Hebron and forcing residents to evacuate a neighbourhood of the occupied West Bank city on Friday, October 23, hours after two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others at a nearby checkpoint, CNN reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a large-scale military operation in the West Bank modelled on the 2025 refugee-camp campaigns, first directing a full closure of the territory and then, hours later, saying he would consider a cordon around Hebron and Halhul instead. The attack and the operation ordered in response come four days before Israel's general election on Tuesday, the first since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
What happened at the Yehuda Junction checkpoint?
Two gunmen got out of a car at a military checkpoint near Yehuda Junction, outside Hebron, on Friday morning and opened fire, in a fight that lasted about 20 minutes. The Israeli military said two soldiers were killed — Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman, 23, from Ashkelon, and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, 20, from Hod Hasharon — and three other soldiers were lightly wounded, and that both gunmen were shot and killed. Emergency services first reported five wounded, two of them in critical condition; the military's later accounting records those two as the soldiers who died. The IDF said the gunmen, both Hebron residents, carried an M16 rifle and a handgun, and that their vehicle was filled with "a large quantity" of ammunition. Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir called it "a serious terror attack" and said the fighters' rapid action prevented an attack "on a much larger scale." A Reuters video from the scene captured a responder shouting that the shooting had been going on for at least 20 minutes and that crews were struggling to remove the wounded.
What operation has Israel launched in Hebron?
The military sealed the city and began demolitions the same afternoon. The IDF said it was imposing "a full siege" on Hebron, raiding the attackers' homes and operating against additional suspects, and it announced roughly 70 arrests across the West Bank over the past week, including people it identified as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad affiliates, with dozens of weapons seized. Netanyahu said the military would forcefully evacuate the area of the attack and "transform it completely," applying the plan used in the Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Al-Far'a refugee camps in early 2025, which led to the displacement of thousands of Palestinians and the evacuation of entire neighbourhoods. By Friday afternoon, forces had started demolitions in the Farsh al-Hawa area of Hebron; in video obtained by CNN, a soldier tells residents of a housing complex: "You have five minutes to evacuate." Netanyahu stated the method directly: "We will evacuate the residents, go house to house, remove weapons found there, and address and destroy all terrorist infrastructure."
Has a full West Bank lockdown been imposed?
Not in its original form, as of Friday's reporting. Netanyahu first said he had ordered a full closure of the West Bank starting Friday. Hours later, he appeared to scale the plan back, saying he would consider "a cordon" around the cities of Hebron and Halhul that may extend to other areas, CNN reported. The military said Hebron and other areas had been "placed under a cordon," with roadblocks and closures set up in Palestinian towns in the area. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said he had ordered the immediate demolition of nearby Palestinian structures, went further than the prime minister, calling for "a comprehensive military campaign in Judea and Samaria to dismantle the Palestinian Authority" — although, The Wall Street Journal noted, there was no evidence the gunmen had ties to the Palestinian Authority.
Who is blamed for the attack, and what have the parties said?
Netanyahu blamed Hamas and said the assailants were "planning a major attack aimed at murdering innocent civilians," citing the ammunition found in the car. Hamas praised the attack in a statement — calling it, in The Wall Street Journal's account, "a message to our Zionist enemy that our resistance continues" — but did not directly claim responsibility for it in the reporting opened for this article; Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP also commended the shooting, Al Jazeera reported. On the Palestinian side of the demolition line, local residents told Reuters the buildings targeted by the bulldozers had no connection to the attackers. B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, condemned the announced evacuation as forcible displacement: "Israel is announcing its next crimes in advance," its executive director Yuli Novak said, accusing Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz of declaring "their intention to empty a Palestinian neighborhood in Hebron and repeat the mass displacement and destruction inflicted on the northern West Bank refugee camps." Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded that the Palestinian Authority "be dismantled and demilitarised." The shooting took place against a sharp rise in attacks on Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest across the West Bank, Al Jazeera reported, and Netanyahu cancelled scheduled campaign events after it.
This report is drawn from CNN's October 23, 2026 report, opened and read in full; The Wall Street Journal's October 23, 2026 report, opened and read in full; AnewZ's October 23 live coverage, opened and read in full, including its 14:14 GMT Reuters update; Sky News's October 23 report as carried by Q Radio, opened via search; and Al Jazeera's October 23 reporting as carried by The Business Standard, opened and read in full. Casualty figures are the Israeli military's, published as such; the early count of five wounded and the later count of two killed and three wounded are reconciled in the text, as reported. The claim that the gunmen were planning a larger attack is the IDF's and the prime minister's, attributed as such; Hamas's position is published from its statement as reported by CNN and the Journal.
