Israeli assault on Hebron displaces thousands as West Bank restrictions tighten

An elderly Palestinian man asks an Israeli soldier when he can return home. The soldier pushes him back, then kicks him. Hijazi Shawar is then rushed to hospital by paramedics. It's day three of the Israeli assault on Hebron, and some areas have been devastated. Families watched as their homes were razed to the ground. But social solidarity is on full display in Hebron, Like these truck owners rushing to help a business owner before Israeli forces demolished his establishment. More than 2,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. Almost half of them are children, their homes now bearing the X mark. Most have taken refuge with relatives or friends. I evacuated last night from the neighborhood and half an hour later the army went into my house. When I got to the Jalada area, we heard loud bangs and crashes. They even sent a small drone there. Israel's forced displacement of Palestinians continues elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Jabri and others pack their farm near Jenin. The Israeli army ordered the whole village to leave, permanently. I have sheep and cows. Our entire lives are tied to this land. Last year, they uprooted our olive trees. And this year, they want to force us to leave. We don't know where to go. Human rights organizations say Israel's erasure of Palestinian communities is methodical and must be stopped with international intervention. The Israeli army has imposed additional restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, including a ban on the entry to the Jordan Valley. It says they're part of preparations ahead of Israel's elections on Tuesday. Many Palestinians have made plans to stay home until the vote. Noura Odey Al-Jazeera, Occupied West Bank, Palestine. Jasper Nathaniel is an independent journalist and writer of the Infinite Jazz newsletter on Substack. He says the restrictions are reshaping life across the territory. Parts of Hebron are basically occupied by the military. So the entire neighborhood where the two men who shot the soldiers, where they're from, that entire neighborhood every home has been the people have been forcibly expelled the homes are all marked with a black x to indicate that they've been kicked out there's a sort of beautiful huge villa in the middle of that neighborhood which soldiers are now living in there's snipers sticking out the windows and it's just I mean it's a ghost town there because everybody's been expelled and then there's the area around the checkpoint where the shooting actually occurred It's heavily armed or heavily manned, I should say. There's lots of soldiers there. We tried to get close, and they chased us back with their guns several times. So you really can't get anywhere near the checkpoint where it occurred. And then there's sort of what seems like random demolitions, which are mostly around the checkpoint. I think perhaps the argument is they are sort of clearing a line of sight around the checkpoint. So they've just knocked down all of these shops and structures. And then there's just homes on the outskirts that have also been demolished. So today I met a family, I think it was three generations in one house. They had a beautiful home. They showed me pictures. On Friday, soldiers just showed up, aimed their guns. They said, you have two minutes to leave or we shoot you. they had two minutes to you know collect their their passports and their IDs and then they ran out and they just demolished their home and everything that you know they had ever acquired that was in that home and and this has happened to a number of houses in Hebron