More Than 3,000 Return to Damaged Hebron After Israeli Withdrawal

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More than 3,000 Palestinians began returning to battered neighborhoods in Hebron on Monday after Israeli forces ended a large-scale operation that emptied homes, shut businesses and turned parts of the occupied West Bank city into a military zone.

The withdrawal on November 2 exposed the operation’s civilian cost. Residents found damaged doors, wrecked streets and businesses that had lost more than a week of trade. Palestinian civil defense teams urged families to wait for structural inspections before entering damaged buildings.

Israel launched the operation after two Palestinian gunmen attacked a checkpoint near Hebron on October 23, killing two Israeli soldiers and wounding three. Israeli forces killed both assailants. The military said the subsequent raids sought weapons and suspects connected to armed activity, according to Reuters.

An Israeli military official said troops searched hundreds of buildings, questioned or detained residents and seized four firearms, military-style vests and other equipment. “Following the completion of all operational activities, forces withdrew from the neighborhood in Hebron this morning,” the official said, in a statement reported by the Times of Israel.

That result matters. Four weapons cannot by itself explain measures that displaced thousands of people, restricted movement across entire neighborhoods and interrupted education for tens of thousands of students. A security operation directed at suspects became a collective ordeal for a civilian population.

Reuters quoted resident Tamara Obeid describing soldiers entering her home: “They blew up the door and went in. We could not bear it. The children were screaming.” She said troops pointed weapons at her, handcuffed her husband and took him outside.

A stone building in the Old City of Hebron, Palestine, photographed in January 2022 — FILE — A stone building in Hebron’s Old City, photographed on January 24, 2022. Photo: مي هشلمون / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Photo credit, source and license: مي هشلمون via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said approximately 3,000 people were reportedly displaced, while stressing that verification continued. OCHA said residents faced evacuation orders, movement restrictions and the temporary military use of homes. More than 251,000 students across 691 West Bank schools shifted to remote learning during the wider escalation.

Palestinian officials put the number displaced or directly affected in Hebron at about 3,300. WAFA reported that 15 homes or other facilities were demolished, 327 shops were forced to close and roughly 80,000 students could not attend classes. Those figures come from Palestinian authorities and remain separate from the UN’s still-developing assessment.

The new figures update Pamphlets’ October 24 report, which documented the first 1,200 people driven from their homes as the operation opened. Monday’s return is not a second displacement event. It is the end of that same operation, with the scale and damage now clearer.

Israel called the raids a targeted, limited counterterrorism operation. The checkpoint killings gave the Israeli military a legitimate duty to identify accomplices and prevent further attacks. That duty did not erase the rights of families who had no demonstrated connection to the gunmen.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that the scale of the measures raised grave concerns about unnecessary and disproportionate force. “Collective punishment is a grave violation of international law,” he said. His office also condemned reported threats to empty or erase neighborhoods, language that sharpened fears of permanent displacement in a city already divided by checkpoints, settlements and military control. The UN statement identified those threats as grounds for concern about ethnic cleansing.

Hebron occupies a singular place in the West Bank. Israel maintains a military presence in the heart of the city to protect several hundred settlers living among more than 200,000 Palestinians. The result is not one security perimeter but a dense system of restricted roads, checkpoints and separated movement. Every new military closure lands on top of that structure.

The operation therefore cannot be measured only by weapons seized or suspects questioned. It must also be judged by whether force remained necessary, proportionate and tied to specific evidence. Displacing thousands while recovering four guns demands a transparent accounting.

The families returning now need safe housing, restored roads, reopened shops and compensation for documented destruction. Independent monitors should receive access to the affected neighborhoods, and Israeli authorities should publish the legal basis for each demolition, detention and seizure.

The October 23 attack killed two soldiers. That fact must not be minimized. Neither should it become a blank check for punishment spread across thousands of people. Hebron’s residents have returned, but the central question remains: whether the withdrawal ends the emergency or merely resets the machinery for the next one.