Israeli forces have carried out mass arrests and forced dozens of families from their homes in the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, on the second day of a sweeping military operation ordered by Israel’s defence minister.
Israeli forces sealed off entrances to Qabatiya while rounding up and interrogating dozens of residents on Saturday, local sources told Al Jazeera. They converted several homes into military interrogation centres, displacing their occupants, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that the town is subject to a “full curfew”.
The crackdown follows an order by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz to “act forcefully … against the village of Qabatiya”, where he claims a Palestinian alleged of carrying out a stabbing and car-ramming attack in northern Israel hails from.
In a statement on Friday, Israel’s military said it had deployed troops from multiple divisions, along with border police and members of the Shin Bet security service, into Qabatiya. It said forces had raided the attack suspect’s home and were preparing to demolish it.
Rights groups have long condemned Israel’s practice of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis, describing it as an illegal form of collective punishment.
Israel’s military claimed its forces would “scan additional locations in the village” and “work to arrest wanted individuals and locate weapons”.
“There is a sense of fear among people in town,” one resident told Al Jazeera. “There are Israeli threats and Israeli incitement.”
The Israeli military raids on Saturday also extended elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, including to several villages surrounding Ramallah and Hebron, Wafa reported. Israeli forces assaulted and arrested eight people from the towns of Dura, Abda and Imreish near Hebron, according to the news agency.
Israeli military incursions and attacks across the occupied West Bank have been a near-daily occurrence during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli authorities have arrested nearly 21,000 Palestinians. As of December 1, some 9,300 Palestinian prisoners were in Israeli jails, more than a third of them detained without charges.
Palestinian prisoners have been tortured, sexually abused and even killed in custody.
