Israel Closes Every West Bank Crossing for Election Day, as Hebron Lockdown Displaces 2,000
Two days after Hebron's siege began, Israel announced it will seal every land crossing with the West Bank on October 27 and bar Palestinian workers from entering or leaving Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley for the day Israelis vote, as the Hebron operation that triggered it has already displaced about 2,000 residents.
Israel's political echelon approved a closure of every land crossing with the West Bank for 27 October, election day, along with a ban on Palestinian workers entering or leaving Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, industrial zones included, for the same 24 hours. The announcement came on Sunday, two days after the operation it follows from had already begun.
That operation is the lockdown of Hebron, ordered after gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on 23 October. Israeli forces have since expanded their presence in the city, and the resulting displacement has grown with it, with roughly 2,000 residents forced from their homes as the demolitions and cordon Netanyahu first ordered the same day have widened rather than narrowed.
Election day closures of the West Bank are not new, Israel has imposed them before on polling days as a standard security measure, but this one arrives on top of an active military operation rather than as a routine precaution layered over a quiet territory. Netanyahu has reportedly floated a wider military offensive beyond Hebron, which would mean voters go to the polls on the same day the operation that triggered the closure is still being decided, not concluded.
The sequence matters more than any single order in it. A checkpoint attack produced a Hebron siege, the siege produced thousands of displaced residents, and the displacement crisis is now arriving at the same moment as a nationwide vote whose outcome will decide who manages whatever the operation has become by the time Israelis finish casting ballots.
