Hebron (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – The Israeli army withdrew from Hebron after having "completed" according to a military official a vast operation which resulted in the displacement of more than 3,000 Palestinian residents, who found their homes ransacked on Monday.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 1:07 p.m.

The army entered the city, the largest in the occupied West Bank, ten days ago, just after a deadly attack at a nearby checkpoint which cost the lives of two soldiers.

The neighborhood where the two attackers, killed during the attack, came from, had been completely cordoned off and emptied of its inhabitants - around 500 families according to the municipality -, mainly during the night.

After more than a week on site and "thorough searches" as well as interrogations and arrests, the operation made it possible to seize "four weapons and several bulletproof vests", the military official said on Monday.

In the morning, AFP saw dozens of buildings tagged with a large black or red cross, indicating that they had been searched. Inside, the homes are upside down: furniture thrown to the ground, mattresses turned over, clothes or children's toys scattered, windows broken on the ground.

In one of them, a turd sits on the toilet floor.

The residents, who had just returned in the morning, noticed the damage. Everywhere, women tidy and clean.

Muhannad al-Tamimi, who had taken refuge in the mosque during these ten days, returned home barely an hour ago, to his apartment on the ground floor of a building. According to him, it is here that the soldiers settled, as they usually do during operations lasting several days.

The fridge is empty, and we see that people have slept in it.

At the start of the operation in the night, around twenty soldiers blew down his door, he told AFP. “They attacked me, put a gun to my wife's head, terrified my children and kicked my daughter,” he describes, ensuring that in addition to the damage, several thousand dollars had disappeared after the searches.

Asked by AFP about these accusations, the Israeli army said it was investigating.

Military vehicles have now disappeared from Hebron, replaced by those of the firefighters, the Civil Defense (rescue organization) and the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.

Broken windows

From the outside, most of the buildings in the neighborhood are intact, but a few homes have been destroyed, notably those of the two attackers - this is almost systematic after attacks perpetrated by Palestinians.

On the wall of the hall of the building of one of them, the soldiers calculated with a black marker the charges necessary to explode the apartment on the fifth and last floor, that of the attacker. There's nothing left of it. Sections of walls and other debris have landed on the floors below, where the windows are in pieces.

On the first night of the operation, "we were told over the loudspeaker to get out of the apartments and leave them open," explains Mohammad Juaaba, the grandfather of one of the attackers. He has just returned after staying with relatives, like around forty members of the family who live in the building.

The attack occurred on October 23, a few days before the legislative elections in Israel.

In this context, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately went to the site and announced a large-scale operation to come across the entire West Bank.

Israeli authorities attributed the attack “to a cell of Hamas”, in power in the Gaza Strip and responsible for the unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023 in Israel. The Palestinian Islamist movement welcomed the attack in Hebron, without claiming responsibility for it.

The Israeli Defense Minister warned that residents of the neighborhood would "not be allowed to return until we have finished resolving all the problems linked to Hamas in Hebron."

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres and his High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, for their part denounced the operation.

“We are witnessing an escalation of repression, while the specter of ethnic cleansing looms ever more heavily. This must stop,” declared Mr. Guterres.

© 2026 AFP

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