Netanyahu Orders Hebron Lockdown, Threatens to 'Destroy' Neighbourhood After Checkpoint Shooting

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and three wounded early Friday when two Palestinian men opened fire at a checkpoint in northern Hebron, the Israeli army said. The men, reported by Israeli media to belong to the same family, were shot dead after a 20-minute exchange of fire.

Within hours, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Hebron sealed off and told the military to prepare for a full lockdown of the occupied West Bank. The army said it had placed the city "under a cordon" and launched what it called "offensive counterterrorism operations."

In a video filmed in Hebron, Netanyahu went further, threatening to raze the neighbourhood the two gunmen came from and remove its residents.

"First of all, we will act to destroy this place, to change it completely. We will evacuate the residents, we will go house to house, we will remove the weapons there as well, and all the terrorist infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed."

Netanyahu said the operation would follow the model of Israeli military assaults on the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps in January 2025, operations that displaced at least 40,000 Palestinians.

Palestinian media reported Israeli raids in Dura, south of Hebron, in which forces shot and wounded at least one Palestinian man and made arrests. Israeli forces also closed the Ibrahimi Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam and a Unesco-recognised endangered Palestinian World Heritage Site, and expelled its staff and custodians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs.

The ministry called the closure "a flagrant and ongoing violation of the sanctity of Islamic holy sites and freedom of worship, as guaranteed by international conventions and laws." The mosque has faced escalating restrictions in recent months, including limits on the call to prayer and the barring of Muslim worshippers, as settler incursions have increased.

Army chief Eyal Zamir called the shooting "serious" and said troops had "prevented an even more serious attack" by killing the two men.

The political response moved quickly from security measures to calls for dismantling Palestinian self-governance entirely. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on X that "this entity known as the Palestinian Authority must be dismantled," adding that "the freedom of movement of Palestinian Authority residents is less important than our right to live." Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded "a full-scale military campaign in Judea and Samaria to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, collect weapons and eliminate terrorist militants," comparing the goal to Gaza and Lebanon.

The full scope and timeline of the threatened West Bank-wide lockdown had not been detailed as of Friday.