Palestinian fighters kill 2 Israeli soldiers in fierce Al-Khalil confrontation

TEHRAN — Two Palestinian fighters from Al-Khalil (Hebron) held off Israeli troops for more than 20 minutes on Friday morning, killing two occupying soldiers before they were martyred at the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint on the city’s northern edge. The fighters were Hamouda and Firas al-Jaabah, both 27, from the same family, each married with two children. Shortly after 7:30 a.m., they stepped out of their car at the junction Israel calls “Judea Junction” and opened fire on a Home Front Command unit.

The army named its dead as Staff Sgt. Ron Yonatan Roytman and Sgt. Yuval Shai Svilem and admitted to three lightly wounded, though early Hebrew-media reports counted six wounded. The Israeli military concedes it had no warning. Hamas called it a “heroic operation” without claiming it. In its statement, the movement described the attack as the living embodiment of a steadfast people’s will and a message that resistance will only grow stronger until the occupation is driven from the land and the holy sites.

It described the operation as the natural, legitimate answer to the occupation’s crimes in the West Bank and al-Quds (Jerusalem) and its continuing war on Gaza. Hamas also called for total mobilization in every city, village and camp to ignite the ground beneath settlers and invaders. Every Palestinian who bears arms, it said, should aim them at soldiers and settlers. The al-Qassam Brigades praised the attack, Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades urged further confrontation, and the PFLP and DFLP welcomed it.

Hezbollah saluted Hamouda and Firas and described the operation as a response to Israeli killing, genocide, destruction and desecration of holy sites. Netanyahu arrived in Al-Khalil (Hebron) with War Minister Israel Katz and announced what the city would get. “We will act to destroy this place,” he said, promising to evacuate the neighborhood, search house to house, and apply the method used in the northern refugee camps, whose destruction displaced thousands in 2025.

Katz put it in these words: “The Jenin refugee camp model arrives in Hebron.” By afternoon, bulldozers were working, and a soldier gave one housing complex five minutes to get out. Residents told Reuters the homes had no connection to the attackers. Hebron and Halhul sit under cordon, the Ibrahimi Mosque has been shut and its staff expelled, according to the Palestinian Awqaf Ministry, and relatives of the martyrs were arrested. Involved in the campaign while the elections are close, Netanyahu also floated an operation “on a scale unseen since the Six-Day War,” then trimmed his full West Bank closure to a cordon around two cities.

He accused Israel’s enemies of timing attacks to sway the vote. The territory was due to be sealed for Tuesday’s election anyway. Bezalel Smotrich ordered demolitions, and he and Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded the Palestinian Authority be dismantled. Hebron has lived under this logic since 1994, when a settler massacred worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque and Israel’s answer was to hand settlers half of it and split the city. Smotrich moved this year to revoke parts of the Hebron agreements.

Palestinian monitors logged 647 settler attacks in September alone.