LONDON: Israeli forces detained two Palestinian children on Sunday and ordered families out of a residential building in Hebron before converting it into a military barracks, as a broader operation displaced thousands of residents, according to Palestinian media and local officials.
Farid Burqan said that his children, Yamen and Muhammad, were detained in the city’s Al-Fahs area and taken to the Hajti military camp for interrogation, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers forced families out of a building owned by Mansour Al-Turk before converting it into a military barracks. The building is next to the Al-Haimouni family’s communal gathering hall.
The incidents came as the Israeli military pressed ahead with a large-scale operation in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, following a shooting on Friday that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded three others, The Associated Press reported.
The operation has displaced more than 2,600 Palestinians and severely restricted movement, according to the Hebron municipality. Municipal officials said that families had been forced from nearly 500 apartments in Deir Bahha and surrounding neighborhoods.
The military said that troops were searching the area where the gunmen had operated and warned residents to evacuate Deir Bahha, the suspected attackers’ neighborhood. Many left the city on foot.
After Friday’s shooting, the military said that it found weapons in the gunmen’s car and believed they had planned to attack Israeli civilians before being stopped at the checkpoint where the gunfight erupted.
The operation unfolded in the run-up to an Israeli election widely viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and security policies during three years of war.