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Israel ordered a “full lockdown” of the occupied West Bank Friday after the Israeli military said two of its soldiers were killed during an attack that also left two Palestinian gunmen dead.
The two suspected shooters, both Palestinians from Hebron, were armed with an M16 rifle and a handgun, Israel said.
A cordon would be imposed around the cities of Hebron and Halhul and Israel would consider “extending this model to other cities as well,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Soldiers would go “house to house” in areas the attackers were believed to be from, evacuate residents and destroy “terrorist infrastructure” and “infrastructure for settlement” would be built, he added.
Photographs from Hebron showed Israeli bulldozers demolishing at least one Palestinian building.
“We are prepared for a large-scale operation in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said, using a name employed by some Israelis for the West Bank.
The incident comes just days before a crucial election that will decide whether Netanyahu can hold on to power.
The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet domestic security service issued a joint statement later on Friday announcing the launch of a counter-terrorism operation in the Hebron area that was an extension of security operations started earlier in the day.
“The forces have begun conducting precise, targeted and thorough searches throughout the area to locate and dismantle terrorist infrastructure and weapons, while questioning suspects,” the IDF and Shin Bet said in the statement.
“The operation is targeted and limited to the area from which the terrorists operated, and is expected to continue for several days.”
Residents living in the area will be able to exit through three designated checkpoints after questioning and may be referred for further questioning, according to the statement.
The military would also be “demolishing illegal structures that could pose a security threat at the site of the encounter,” according to the statement.
IDF helmet cam shows gunfight with Palestinian gunmen
There has been a recent surge in Israeli settler violence and military activity in the West Bank centered on the start of the olive harvesting season, with Palestinians, activists and American journalists among those attacked and detained. Netanyahu has previously blamed “a handful of young juvenile delinquents” for instances of settler violence.
In his comments Friday, Netanyahu praised settlers in the West Bank as “heroic,” saying they were “an example to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu’s office said it instructed the IDF to “impose a closure” on Hebron and to prepare for a “full lockdown” across the entire West Bank starting Friday. It gave no further details on the planned closure of the territory.
In comments following an emergency meeting with his security cabinet and top military and security officials, Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the shooting and said the militant group was “planning a major attack aimed at murdering innocent civilians.”
He cited “large quantities of weapons and ammunition discovered,” but did not provide further details on the attack. He did not say whether the injured included soldiers or civilians.
The order to lock down the West Bank came hours after the Israeli military said it had killed two people after a shooting attack in which at least five people were initially reported injured.
The Israeli military later said two soldiers had been killed in the attack. It said three additional soldiers were lightly injured and evacuated to receive medical treatment at a hospital.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s primary emergency service, had earlier said it received a report at around 7:15 a.m. local time (12:15 a.m. ET) of multiple casualties following the attack near the Yehuda Junction, near Hebron. It said first responders had provided medical treatment to at least five people, including two in critical condition.
The identities of the two people alleged to have launched the attack and who were killed by Israeli forces were not immediately clear as of late Friday morning.
The lockdown comes ahead of next week’s Israeli election, which is largely viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu’s leadership around the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
Netanyahu has focused much of his campaign in the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote on security for Israelis. His government has repeatedly warned of potential attacks by the country’s “enemies” in the lead-up to the election, without providing evidence.
In the wake of Friday’s attack, he noted that he had “warned several weeks ago about our enemies’ attempts to harm us, our civilians and our soldiers ahead of the elections. That is what they tried to here.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested there would be a sweeping offensive in Hebron, comparing it to Israel’s deadly assault in Gaza and its operations Lebanon, as well as in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
“Every clan neighborhood in Hebron from which the terrorists emerged today will be evacuated of its residents, and the terror infrastructure in the neighborhood will be addressed and dismantled,” he said. “This is the only language that jihadist terrorism understands. Just like in Gaza, just like in Lebanon.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, called Friday for the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that has long overseen parts of the occupied West Bank, to be dismantled in response to the attack.
“There cannot be a situation where, within Judea and Samaria, we have a state of terror,” he said in a post on X. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich shared similar sentiments, saying there was “no avoiding a comprehensive military campaign” in the West Bank to “dismantle the Palestinian authority, collect weapons, and eliminate terrorists — just as in Gaza and Lebanon.”
The West Bank has been a growing flashpoint for months, and the past week has seen another wave of settler violence and military activity in the territory as the Palestinian olive harvesting season has gotten underway.
American nationals are among those who have come under attack while accompanying Palestinian farmers on their harvests. Earlier this week, New York congressional candidate Brad Lander was detained in the area alongside a number of activists and American rabbis.
Settler violence has long flared during the olive harvesting season, but in the years since the Oct. 7 attacks, violence has increased sharply, with Palestinians also seeing their olives stolen.
According to the United Nations, at least 160 Israeli settler attacks linked to the olive harvesting season were recorded in the first two weeks of October alone. The U.N. said many of those attacks were carried out “under the protection of, or with the participation of, Israeli forces.”
Netanyahu’s government has backed settler expansion in the West Bank despite international condemnation.
The mounting settler violence has increasingly been described as terrorism by some global officials, including by U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
As of the end of August, at least 322 Palestinians were reported killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since January 2025, including 74 children, with more than 5,900 injured, according to data published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The majority were killed by Israeli forces. It was not clear from the U.N. data how many of those killed might have been militants.
More than 3,400 attacks by Israeli settlers resulting in casualties and/or property damage were reported within that same time.
At least 20 Israelis were reported to have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank within that time frame, including one child and eight members of Israeli forces, with more than 120 injured, according to the U.N. data.
Chantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.
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