Israel demolishes homes of Palestinians blamed for attack on soldiers

Israeli forces have blown up the homes of two Palestinians who killed two Israeli soldiers in Hebron last week. The demolitions came on the eighth day of a military offensive and siege on the southern city in the occupied West Bank.

Troops demolished the homes of brothers Ahmad and Hammouda al-Jaabeh on Friday, after surrounding the buildings since the morning and sealing off the area. The brothers were killed after carrying out an attack on October 23 near the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint, at the western entrance to Hebron, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding three others.

Reporting from Hebron, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed al-Atrash said army engineers spent at least nine hours inside the homes rigging explosives before detonating them.

When residents tried to approach the site afterwards, large numbers of troops backed by drones moved in and detained at least 12 Palestinians, he said. “Some of these Palestinians are still being detained up to this moment and we monitored live on air their abuse at the hands of the Israeli occupation army,” al-Atrash said.

Israeli forces have fully emptied the Ein Deir Bahha neighbourhood of its residents, he said. Some homes “have been turned into military barracks” and command centres. Hundreds of families in the neighbouring al-Jalda area remain trapped in their homes.

The Hebron municipality said on Tuesday that 4,969 Palestinians from 780 families had been displaced by the offensive. Al-Atrash said Israeli forces had arrested at least 120 Palestinians since the operation began and interrogated hundreds more. At least 13 businesses near the checkpoint have been demolished.

He said Israeli officials had threatened to speed up demolitions in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control, in line with measures approved by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after the attack.

On Friday, dozens of displaced residents, including women, children and older people, protested near the closed al-Jalda roundabout. They demanded an end to the siege and the right to return home.

Raed Nairat, an academic and expert on Israeli affairs speaking from Nablus, told Al Jazeera that the operation’s message had been clear “from day one”.

“It is effectively collective punishment, with the aim of breaking the Palestinians’ will and making him pay a price he cannot bear, as a result of an act he may not have been consulted about and may not be content with,” he said.

Nairat said the operation was driven by political rather than security aims. “It is as if you have turned Palestinian society back to 20 or 40 years ago in terms of fragmentation and turned the entire West Bank into a military zone ruled and controlled by the Israeli army,” he said.

Hamas described the forced displacement and demolitions in Hebron as part of a systematic campaign targeting the Palestinian presence and called for urgent international action.

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces detained four Palestinians in raids south of Tulkarem. Soldiers and settlers also attacked or drove off olive harvesters in villages near Bethlehem and Nablus.

Israeli military and settler attacks across the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, have intensified since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.