raids

Israeli forces and settlers have escalated pogroms and raids across the occupied West Bank, attacking and injuring Palestinians, restricting their movement, carrying out arrests and demolishing homes.

This comes as a military offensive and siege on the Hebron governorate entered its seventh day – an operation that has displaced or besieged hundreds of Palestinian families and kept tens of thousands of students out of classrooms.

In the Qalandiya refugee camp just north of occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces carried out a raid that triggered clashes on Thursday. Two children were wounded, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.

It said its teams treated a 15-year-old boy who was shot with live ammunition in both legs, and a child, aged 12, who was injured by live-bullet fragments. Both were taken to hospital.

In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers and settlers beat disabled Palestinian Mohammad Ahmad Ayesh Thawabta in the village of al-Maniya, southeast of Bethlehem, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

In the northern West Bank, Israeli forces detained 13 Palestinians, including three brothers, in raids before dawn on Thursday, the Palestinian Prisoners Media Office and local sources said. Most of the raids were in the Nablus governorate, where soldiers searched homes and harassed families.

Hebron offensive

In Hebron, Israeli forces continued raids and closures that began last week after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a gun attack. Both Palestinian suspects were also killed.

Hebron Governor Khaled Dudin said on Thursday that 537 families, comprising 3,361 people, have been forced from their homes, Wafa reported.

They include 232 infants, 326 older people, 147 pregnant or breastfeeding women and 213 people with chronic illnesses. Municipal figures put the total number affected, including those under siege, at about 5,000 people from 780 families.

Dudin said the offensive has disrupted education for about 262,000 students across 589 schools in the governorate this week, forcing schools to move to remote learning. Officials estimated daily economic losses at 10 million to 12 million shekels ($3.2m to $3.9m).

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said Israeli forces detained 110 Palestinians in the governorate from Friday to Wednesday. Soldiers beat two men in Dura and Wad al-Saman and arrested two brothers while they were ploughing their land east of Yatta, it said. Israeli forces also raided homes in Taffuh and Halhul, and settlers attacked vehicles at the city’s closed northern entrance, it added.

Memorials demolished

In nearby Masafer Yatta, armed settlers attacked US journalist Jasper Nathaniel and two activists in the village of Umm al-Khair on Wednesday. Russian activist Adele Shoko said on X that the settlers beat and threatened them and stole their equipment and Nathaniel was pepper-sprayed and arrested.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israeli forces are still operating in Hebron, blocking access and imposing tight restrictions on movement across the governorate.

They are “disrupting Palestinians’ access to livelihoods, education and healthcare. Most displaced families are staying with relatives,” OCHA said, calling for the prevention of further forced displacements and demolitions.

Israeli forces also demolished memorials to Palestinians in several parts of the Hebron governorate on Thursday. In Dura, south of Hebron city, soldiers fired a heavy barrage of tear gas before bulldozing a mural bearing the images of several of the town’s dead, including Bajis Abu Atwan, who was killed in the 1970s.

The targeting of memorials “appears to be a new pattern recently adopted by Israeli forces across all West Bank governorates – though at a higher rate here in Hebron”, Al Jazeera’s Muntasir Nassar said, reporting from Dura.

Israeli military and settler attacks across the West Bank have intensified since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

The FBI Tuesday morning raided a mansion in Beverly Hills in connection with an investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell, sources told The Times.

Swalwell, a Democrat from Dublin, dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before he dropped out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was among the front-runners.

On Tuesday, FBI agents were in Beverly Hills executing a search warrant on North Roxbury Drive in connection with the probe.

“We are executing a search warrant. Court documents are sealed. No arrests are planned,” said FBI spokesperson Lourdes Arocho.

The raid is taking place at the home of billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, sources confirmed to The Times.

Swalwell stayed at the home several times while campaigning and used it for political events before he was kicked out in April after the allegations against him became public. In one of his last acts there, Swalwell filmed a video denying the rape and sexual assault.

Cloobeck, 64, is a one-time California gubernatorial candidate and a well-known figure in Democratic politics. He got rich in the timeshare industry, eventually selling his Las Vegas-based Diamond Resorts company to a private equity firm for $2.2 billion. He immersed himself in Nevada Democratic politics, growing close with the late U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, and later launched his long-shot bid for California governor.

He quickly faded in the crowded field, failing to garner above 1% in any poll, and then threw his support behind Swalwell. More recently, he has found himself in the news for being embroiled in a criminal case with Adva Lavie, an OnlyFans model accused of seducing rich men for money.

In August, agents seized Swalwell’s electronic devices and raided his Washington home, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.

The source said Swalwell was held in August at SFO for search purposes and released the same day. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue an inquiry into his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.

His home was also searched during the summer, the source added, based on a warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.

Investigators sought to seize Swalwell’s white iPhone and MacBook Pro, according to court records.

They sought the devices as part of their inquiry into whether Swalwell violated a federal law that makes it a crime for anyone acting under official government authority to willfully deprive a person of their constitutional rights, according to the court filings.

Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.

Palestinians in Hebron are ‘living in fear’ with the city closed, while Israeli forces arrest dozens across West Bank.

Israel has imposed a lockdown and displaced thousands of Palestinians from their homes in Hebron, as the military conducts raids in the occupied West Bank following the deaths of two Israeli soldiers.

This comes as the Palestinian Authority (PA) on Saturday called for international pressure on Israel to protect Hebron’s residents, who said soldiers announced evacuation orders over loudspeakers late at night, leaving them with no time to prepare and few places to move to.

Hebron’s mayor Yousef al-Ja’bari told Al Jazeera that 2,200 people had been forced from their homes as hundreds of Israeli raids took place since Friday’s attack by two Palestinian gunmen on an Israeli army reserve base. The two Palestinians were killed, as well as the two Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then ordered a “full lockdown” of the West Bank following the attack.

Mayor al-Ja’bari said on Saturday that Hebron residents can neither enter nor leave the city.

Israeli soldiers also fired a stun grenade at Al Jazeera journalists near the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint in Hebron, as they documented an Israeli operation to bulldoze homes and vehicles in the area.

The Israeli military carried out raids across at least 15 areas of the occupied West Bank on Saturday, Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground reported.

Those targeted include Jenin and Nablus in the north; Ramallah, Al-Bireh, Birzeit, and occupied East Jerusalem in the centre; and Bethlehem in the south.

Israeli forces have arrested about 70 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said.

The PA, which governs the West Bank, called Israel’s actions “collective punishment”, citing the demolition of homes, forced displacement of entire neighbourhoods, and the “closure and siege of Palestinian cities”, and urged the international community to intervene, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Meanwhile, Hamas said in a statement that the “campaigns and escalations carried out by the occupation and its criminal settlers against our people will only fuel further outrage”.

Hundreds of thousands ‘under siege’

Around 200,000 Palestinians live in the city of Hebron itself, and a further 600,000 in Hebron governorate, making it the West Bank’s most populous governorate.

Those 800,000 Palestinians in Hebron governorate are “now under siege, with all entrances and exits closed since morning”, Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist and political analyst based in Hebron, told Al Jazeera.

“Inside the city, there is no safe place for anyone to hide … the city is really in fear,” Amro said.

Political positioning

Israeli politicians are trying to “capitalise” on the attack ahead of parliamentary elections on October 27 , Al Jazeera’s West Bank correspondent Nour Odeh said.

“Netanyahu, his Likud party, and his allies in this right-wing coalition are behind in the polls,” said Odeh, so in response they are “trying to put up a brave front, saying they’re combating Palestinians”.

Just days before Israelis are set to vote, Netanyahu avoided answering whether he planned to dismantle the PA, but said a “big surprise” awaits the organisation.

Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Every day, Fuad Abu Salam sips his morning coffee outside his rented home in the Thinnabeh suburb, gazing at every detail of the sprawling Tulkarem refugee camp in front of him. This West Bank camp he can see in the distance once housed a two-storey building comprising four apartments, each measuring 300 square metres (3,229sq feet), in which he and his extended family lived.

After he was displaced from the camp, he, his wife, his four children, and his mother were confined to a small, rented apartment no bigger than 100sq metres (1,076sq feet) in Thinnabeh. His home in Tulkarem was partially destroyed when he left the camp.

Everything changed for Fuad and his family on January 21, 2025, when Israel launched a military assault in the occupied West Bank dubbed “Iron Wall”, initially targeting the Jenin refugee camp. A week later, the operation expanded to include the Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps in the city of Tulkarem.

Israeli forces forcibly displaced the entire populations of the three camps during January and February 2025 and continue to prevent their return, the United Nations has said.

Mass displacement

Data from UNRWA cited in a report titled, Destruction of Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Northern West Bank, stated that 33,362 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced from the three camps. By October 2025, 52 percent of structures in the Jenin camp, 48 percent in the Nur Shams camp, and 36 percent in the Tulkarem camp had been destroyed or damaged.

The Israeli operation has affected hundreds of homes, roads, and infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, while humanitarian aid to the camps has been cut off.

Israeli forces killed 102 Palestinians, including 21 children, during the period covered, according to the report. This represents 46 percent of the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank during this period.

On Sunday, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to provide a timeline for the return of displaced people to the three camps, setting November 23 as a deadline for a response.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich rejected the ruling, warning that the return of residents could allow for the reconstruction of what he termed “terror infrastructure”. He called on the government not to implement the decision.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz opposed the court’s intervention, asserting that the army’s continued presence in the camps was a security decision and stating his intention to maintain a military presence there.

Fuad, 42, a greenhouse installer, found himself forced to flee with all the camp’s other residents and more than 40 family members. But he and his neighbours carried with them the hope of returning home.

They moved between the homes of relatives, enduring harsh living conditions, until he finally settled in the Thinnabeh suburb of Tulkarem.

The neighbourhood, which overlooks the camp, has “restored his spirit” because he can see his home even if it’s from afar. Although he is unable to reach the building, he can gaze at it and imagine a time when he can return.

“If a decision were issued right now allowing us to return, I would go back immediately without a moment’s hesitation,” he said.

But his home is no longer what it used to be. It was partially demolished and set on fire by Israeli soldiers, rendering more than 80 percent of the apartment block uninhabitable. Fuad plans to use the rubble to rebuild his home.

“I will never waver in my resolve to return, even if it means pitching a tent over the ruins and living there,” he declared.

Mohamad Ararawi, 18, from the Jenin refugee camp, also saw his home razed to the ground with a wide road replacing it.

He told Al Jazeera that his family of 40, who had lived in a five-story building in the al-Damaj neighbourhood, all fled the camp when the Israeli military operation began, seeking shelter in homes belonging to other relatives.

“My mother, father, five sisters, and I took refuge in my brother’s unfinished apartment. We endured harsh conditions, suffering through biting cold and scorching heat, before gradually completing the construction until it became somewhat habitable,” he added.

Returning is all that matters to them, and they refuse to live anywhere but the camp, even if it lacks basic amenities.

A near-impossible return

Returning the displaced back to their homes is not merely an issue of clearing roads for residents. Returning would mean living in a camp in which infrastructure has been damaged and hundreds of homes destroyed, all amid a lack of necessities.

Nihad Shawish, a member of the Nur Shams Camp Popular Services Committee, told Al Jazeera that the scale of destruction makes the residents’ return fraught with immense difficulties, despite their will to go back to their homes.

Approximately 400 homes, most of them three to four stories high, were destroyed, he said, while about 100 homes were burned down during the Israeli army’s presence in the camp.

Even the ones that survived are not necessarily habitable; they sustained severe damage affecting doors, windows, and interior facilities. The collapse of some buildings has also damaged neighbouring homes.

Approximately 10,900 camp residents remain displaced, including families staying in private homes and others at a school in the Thinnabeh suburb.

Faisal Salameh, an official with the Tulkarem Camp Popular Committee, told Al Jazeera that more than 2,000 housing units were completely destroyed, while approximately 90 per cent of the camp’s homes sustained partial damage, rendering them uninhabitable.

“Israel has turned the camp into an environment that drives residents away, given the widespread destruction and the ban on reconstruction in certain areas that have been converted into roads,” he noted.

Despite these conditions, Salameh said that displaced residents are eager to return to the camp as soon as a decision by the Israeli government permits them to.

The camp was home to approximately 15,000 people. The majority of the displaced currently live in rented homes or with relatives, while others have sought shelter in schools, mosques, or makeshift tin shacks.

Israeli rejection

While the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling opens the door to discussing the return of displaced persons to camps in the northern West Bank, its rejection by Israeli government ministers raises questions about whether it will be implemented. Until then, the lives of the displaced families remain in limbo.

Mohamad Halaseh, an expert on Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli right-wing isn’t just trying to alter the structure of the judicial system, but also seeking to undermine its legitimacy and exert pressure on judges.

He explained that the effect of political stances is evident in the disregard for Supreme Court rulings. He cites the issue of Palestinian prisoner visitations, a case in which the state failed to comply with the court’s decisions, as one example of this.

“The continued disregard for court rulings undermines the judiciary’s ability to compel the government to act when judicial decisions conflict with the stance of the political leadership,” he said.

Several precedents make the implementation of court rulings on the camps unlikely, he said. This is particularly distressing for residents who also face strong Israeli political opposition to the return of Palestinians to the three camps.

“Declared political stances set a limit on the extent to which executive institutions comply with judicial rulings,” he said.