Netanyahu Threatens Large-Scale Military Operation in West Bank
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that a large-scale military operation in the West Bank could take place soon and pledged to relocate some residents of Hebron. The threat follows an attack by armed Palestinian men that killed two soldiers.
According to AFP on Friday (23 October 2026), the attack took place at a checkpoint near a Palestinian town in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, and also wounded three soldiers. It came just days before Israel’s general election, in which Netanyahu faces a close contest.
The two gunmen who carried out the attack were killed in a shoot-out with soldiers. During a visit to Hebron after the attack, Netanyahu said Israeli forces would enter the neighbourhood where the attackers lived and relocate its residents.
“We will evacuate the residents, search from house to house, seize the weapons there, and deal with and destroy all the terrorist infrastructure,” Netanyahu said, according to his office.
“The Defence Minister and I are considering a very extensive IDF [Israeli military] operation in Judea and Samaria—on a scale not seen since the Six-Day War,” Netanyahu added, referring to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
“The IDF is ready to carry it out and we will decide when, but this operation will definitely take place,” he said.
Netanyahu said the military would follow a model previously used in refugee camps in the northern West Bank. According to the UN human rights office, the large-scale military operation known as ‘Iron Wall’, launched in January 2025, forced tens of thousands of people to leave several refugee camps.
By July this year, 33,362 Palestinian refugees displaced from the three camps had still not been allowed to return, the UN said.
Nearly two years later, the Israeli military remains in Jenin refugee camp, which before the Iron Wall operation had been a base for Palestinian armed militant groups resisting the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli military also remains in two refugee camps in the nearby city of Tulkarem. In all three camps, the military demolished dozens of houses in densely populated areas with interconnected alleyways, saying this would improve access for troops and armoured vehicles. It also established operational centres for its forces inside residents’ homes.
“The Jenin refugee camp model will now be applied in Hebron,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on X.
“Every clan-based neighbourhood in Hebron—the home of the terrorists who acted today—will be emptied of its residents. The terrorist infrastructure in the neighbourhood will be dealt with and dismantled,” he said, referring to the large families, or clans, that wield significant influence in the city of Hebron.