Israeli forces have stormed towns and villages, after two gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in occupied East Jerusalem, killing six people, raising fears of further military and Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and collective punishment in the occupied West Bank as Israel relentlessly pounds Gaza.
On Tuesday morning, the Palestinian Wafa news agency, citing local sources, reported that Israeli forces stormed the town of Biddu and closed its main entrance that connects it to the town of al-Jib, which is the only main road for nearly “70,000 citizens in the area”.
During the raid, Israeli forces fired live bullets, sound bombs and, amid clashes with locals, fired toxic and tear gas.
Israeli forces also raided several towns northwest of Jerusalem and carried out arrests using heavy tear gas. In the town of Qatna, a number of young men were arrested after a residential building was raided, Wafa added.
Following the attack, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir said in a statement on Monday that he had ordered a “full closure” of the area that the alleged gunmen had come from.
“We will continue with a determined and ongoing operational and intelligence effort, we will pursue terror cells everywhere, and we will thwart terrorist infrastructure and its organisers,” he said.
While raids in the occupied West Bank have ramped up since the war in Gaza began, Monday’s attack has heightened tensions.
Local sources on the ground told Al Jazeera Arabic that a number of settlers had attacked homes belonging to Palestinians and spray-painted racist slogans in the village of Jurish, south of Nablus.
Meanwhile, in Hebron governorate, Israeli forces arrested two people and set up several military checkpoints at the entrances to the towns, villages and camps. Soldiers also closed several primary and secondary roads, Wafa reported.
At the same time, soldiers blew up the house of prisoner Thabet Masalma in the town of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, which led to clashes with locals, during which Israeli troops fired live ammunition, wounding two people.
Masalma is accused of being part of a shooting attack eight months ago that resulted in the death of an Israeli settler and wounded three others.
The demolition leaves the detainee’s wife, parents and three children homeless.
It is part of a pattern of collective punishment actions targeting the families of Palestinian suspects in recent years, including the deportation of family members, that Israeli ministers pledged to press ahead with in the wake of Monday’s shootings to act as a deterrent against future attacks.
The Israeli army says it has taken surveys at the homes of the two Palestinian suspects from Monday’s shooting attack, to prepare their homes for demolition.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented at least 26 homes demolished in the occupied West Bank as a punitive measure in 2025, displacing more than 70 Palestinians.
