Displaced Palestinians return to damaged Hebron quarter as Israeli troops withdraw

HEBRON, West Bank, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Palestinians returned to damaged homes in Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Monday after the Israeli military concluded a 10-day operation that the UN says displaced more than 3,000 people in the city. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the operation after Palestinian gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a Hebron checkpoint on October 23. Both assailants were killed in the attack. The Israeli military, speaking through an unnamed military official, said the army withdrew on Monday.

Soldiers "conducted thorough searches of multiple locations, detained and questioned suspects, and located and confiscated four weapons, several vests and additional military equipment," the official said. 'THEY BLEW UP THE DOOR AND WENT IN' Tamara Obeid cried as she returned home to find broken furniture, with toys and other possessions scattered on the floor. "They entered the house in a very terrifying way," she said of the moment Israeli forces raided her home on October 23.

"They blew up the door and went in. We could not bear it. The children were screaming. They followed me to the bedroom, and had the weapons pointed at my head. They threatened us. They handcuffed my husband and took him outside," she said. On Friday, Israel's military said it had demolished the assailants' homes, one of which was a short distance from Obeid's house. The military has also demolished other homes as well as shops, roads and factories in Hebron since the attack, according to local officials, though ​the scale of the demolitions is unclear.

On Monday, a bulldozer cleared rubble and earth barricades, and Palestinian civil defence workers, security forces and other people stood in an alleyway strewn with rubble, where members of the security forces cordoned off the entrance to a building. The Israeli operation prompted protests last week by Palestinians in Hebron, an ancient city where hundreds of Jewish settlers live among tens of thousands of Palestinians. The homes demolished on Friday had been occupied by the wives and children of the gunmen before ​the military forced Palestinians to leave the area, according to local residents.

Violence has escalated in the West Bank since Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli military offensive in Gaza. The West Bank violence has included a sharp rise in attacks by militant settlers on Palestinians, as well as sweeping Israeli military raids and Palestinian attacks on Israelis. (Reporting by Emily Rose; Editing by Tom Perry and Andrew Heavens)