Four days before Israel’s October 27 general election, two Palestinian gunmen attacked a military checkpoint in Hebron in the southern West Bank on the 23rd, killing two Israeli soldiers. Israel blamed Hamas, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Hebron sealed and preparations for a closure of the entire West Bank.
According to South Korea’s Kyunghyang Shinmun, the attack took place at around 7:30 a.m. local time on the 23rd at a checkpoint at a junction near Hebron. Two men arrived by car, ran toward the checkpoint with weapons and opened fire; the gun battle lasted more than 20 minutes before both were killed. Australia’s ABC reported two Israeli soldiers killed and three wounded, though early reports differed on the number of injured and the full toll could not be confirmed.
광고 문의 · 300×250The gunmen were men in their twenties from Hebron who shared a surname; Israeli authorities and local media identified them as Hamas members. Kyunghyang, citing the military investigation, said a large quantity of ammunition was found in their car and that they are believed to have intended to cross into Israel to attack civilians before turning on soldiers when they realised they could not pass the checkpoint. Hamas called the attack a ‘legitimate response’ to actions in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Netanyahu: Hebron will be transformed
Netanyahu cancelled campaign events to visit the West Bank and ordered Hebron’s immediate closure. He said the attackers’ hometown would be completely destroyed and transformed, and vowed to hunt down Hamas operatives wherever they hide. Troops raided the attackers’ homes and launched a large-scale counterterrorism operation around Hebron.
According to ABC, Israel will cordon off Hebron and nearby Halhul, evacuate residents of the neighbourhoods where the gunmen lived, and carry out house-to-house searches and weapons seizures. Netanyahu reviewed a West Bank-wide operation with Defence Minister Israel Katz and said it would be the largest since the 1967 Six-Day War, with timing left to the military.
Security becomes an election issue
This is Israel’s first election since the security failures behind Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. ABC noted that responsibility for those failures, the handling of the hostages and the refusal of a full state inquiry have been central issues, and observers had already worried that any pre-election escalation could be used to bolster Netanyahu’s security credentials.
Kyunghyang also reported that the military is investigating whether an AFP photographer who captured the scene had prior knowledge of the attack. AFP said he was passing through the checkpoint on another assignment when he witnessed the shooting. No official reaction from the Palestinian Authority could be confirmed.
