Netanyahu levels Hebron homes to buy his own political survival

By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit · October 24, 2026

Israeli forces bulldozed a West Bank neighborhood and displaced hundreds of families four days before an election, weaponizing collective punishment to keep a desperate government in power.

The machinery of cruelty behind the bulldozers

When a government wants to tear down a community, it starts with an excuse. It ends with a map of cleared land. In the Ein Deir Baha district of Hebron, the machinery of state violence rolled in on Friday afternoon. It arrived backed by the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli Security Agency. The official trigger was a gunfight outside a military checkpoint where gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers. Instead of pursuing a criminal investigation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich seized the bloodshed. They used it as an opening to inflict maximum devastation on innocent people.

According to reporting from The Guardian, Israeli troops leveled an entire neighborhood. They destroyed or marked for destruction an estimated 86 acres. As documented by Al Jazeera and CNN, troops evicted about 1,500 people from their homes by Saturday afternoon. They sealed off Hebron, home to 250,000 residents, with checkpoints at every entry point under full military siege. Soldiers delivered terrifying ultimatums, ordering one family in the Farsh al-Hawa area to evacuate immediately. As detailed by Dawn, families watched bulldozers flatten houses across several blocks. Troops marked homes with sprayed black crosses. They commandeered a prominent family's residential building as a temporary military headquarters. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich filmed himself in body armour before a demolished Palestinian building. He demanded a comprehensive military campaign exactly like in Gaza and Lebanon. This is the Nakba in real time: the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinian land and property, driving ongoing persecution.

Collective punishment as an electoral strategy

We have seen this script before, and we know who writes it. Strongmen clinging to power always seek political salvation in the misery of the vulnerable. Netanyahu faces an election and trails in the polls. Abed Abou Shhadeh analyzed this on Al Jazeera. He noted that the prime minister manufactures chaos to unite a collapsing coalition. To survive politically, Netanyahu promised to transform the neighborhood completely. He deployed a tactical playbook previously used to empty northern West Bank refugee camps like Jenin, Tulkarm, Nur Shams, and al-Far'a.

The human cost of this cynicism is staggering and immediate. As reported by the BBC and Dawn, soldiers drove approximately 300 families from their homes. Families sought shelter in community halls and children's play areas opened by the Hebron municipality. Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi described carrying his 90-year-old bedridden relative out because she was ill. Khaled Shawer al-Tamimi testified that his neighborhood had never heard a gunshot before troops arrived with loudspeakers. As civil rights activist Issa Amro stated to The Guardian, residents face collective punishment for actions they never supported. Amro warned that leaders are turning human suffering into campaign material. Yuli Novak, executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, condemned the assault. Novak stated plainly that Israeli leaders were announcing their crimes in advance.

The defenders of impunity and the road ahead

State defenders will argue that the military merely dismantles terrorist infrastructure after a lethal attack. They point to ammunition found in the vehicle and the tragic deaths of soldiers. This is the ablest defense the state can offer: that absolute security requires absolute lawlessness. Collective punishment is never security. It is a war crime designed to instill permanent hopelessness. Troops sealed an entire city under total siege. Ministers like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir openly call to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. They demand campaigns mirroring the destruction of Gaza. Their true target is not the gunmen. The target is the possibility of Palestinian life and self-determination in the West Bank.

This aggression will not stop at the edge of Ein Deir Baha. Following the impending election, Benjamin Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich will likely escalate these demolitions. They aim for a permanent military reoccupation of the southern West Bank. They will deploy the exact architectural erasure witnessed in the northern refugee camps. Simultaneously, the extreme-right coalition will operationalize threats against the Palestinian Authority. They will withhold tax revenues to trigger total institutional collapse. Armed settlers, emboldened by ministers visiting demolition sites in body armor, will intensify violent pogroms. They will exploit the olive harvest to permanently seize rural land. This government thrives on bloodshed. It trades human lives for electoral margins with absolute impunity.

History will record the truth of this moment. A desperate politician needed to buy four more days in office. To do it, he burned a neighborhood to the ground and turned hundreds of families into refugees. Justice requires lifting the siege immediately. Displaced families must return to their homes. The architects of this forced displacement must face international accountability.

Netanyahu levels Hebron homes to buy his own political survival

The machinery of cruelty behind the bulldozers

Collective punishment as an electoral strategy

The defenders of impunity and the road ahead

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