--- title: Netanyahu Lost His Majority. Now He’s Doubling Down on the West Bank. description: "Following a Hamas attack killing two Israeli soldiers near Hebron, caretaker Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered a military crackdown displacing five thousand Palestinians. IDF leadership openly questioned the operation's justification after initial objectives were met, creating tension between military commanders and political leadership amid Israel's unresolved election results and governmental limbo." url: https://fronts.co/videos/netanyahu-lost-his-majority-now-hes-doubling-down-on-the-west-bank.md canonical: https://fronts.co/videos/netanyahu-lost-his-majority-now-hes-doubling-down-on-the-west-bank/ datePublished: 2026-10-30T19:00:09.000Z dateModified: 2026-10-30T19:00:09.000Z author: - name: Fronts Staff url: https://fronts.co/authors/fronts-team/ publisher: Fronts type: NewsArticle language: en access: members isAccessibleForFree: false tokens: 4639 --- When it comes to who's in charge of the military, the answer is the reality straight forward in most democracies. However, the voters put their countries directly elect the head of governments, and that's the end of it. Israel, however, is anything but straightforward. And while Benjamin Netanyahu remains in command as a caretaker prime minister, the situation in the West Bank right now is putting the limits of his authority to the test. After a Hamas attack last week near the city of Hebron killed two Israeli soldiers, just days before the country's pivotal election, Netanyahu ordered a crackdown that has since forced some 5,000 Palestinians from their homes. And while Israel was always going to respond in some way to an attack on its soldiers, some of the most vocal critics of the continued West Bank presence are coming from the very top of the IDF. The showdown has placed the army and the men giving its orders on yet another collision course, and neither seems willing to back down. This would be a tense standoff at the best of times, but Israel's government is not exactly at its best right now with the results of this week's election still unresolved. And to understand why the military leadership is pushing back so strongly, we need to take a look at how far Netanyahu's proposed response went. The Crackdown The latest round of standoff in the West Bank kicked off with the attack last Friday, October 23. In the early hours of the morning, two Palestinian residents of the ancient city of Hebron, Muhammad, and Ferus Jaba opened fire on an IDF checkpoint at the northern exit of Hebron. Five Israelis were hit, and two of them, Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Reitman and Sergeant Yval Shai Spillen, ultimately succumbed to their injuries. According to the IDF, the attackers had actually intended to carry out a much larger attack against Israeli civilians traveling along Route 35, but were forced to redirect their fire to the soldiers or when they couldn't get past the checkpoint. Hamas quickly praised the attack, describing it as "a natural and legitimate response to the ongoing crimes and brutal assaults against our people, our land, and our holy sites in the West Bank and occupy Jerusalem." End quote. And while the group did encourage further such attacks to be carried out, they stopped short of claiming responsibility for it. Israel, of course, is not a country that simply allows attacks like these to take place without some response, even under normal circumstances. But Hamas could have hardly chosen a worse time for this attack. The ambush took place mid-days before the country's elections, so Jerusalem had even more reason to make sure there was a swift response to this. The architect of that response was of course Benjamin Netanyahu, who has essentially styled his political brand on being the hard-headed "do what it takes" guy who keeps the country safe. Netanyahu, true to form, was determined to punish the attack. Within hours, he convened a meeting with the country's military and intelligence chiefs and ordered preparations for a complete lockdown at the West Bank. In fact, he even floated the possibility of launching an operation across the West Bank, on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Six-Day War, all the way back in 1967. Defense Minister Israel Katz for his part made sure to reference the so-called Genin model, where earlier Israeli military operations had resulted in the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from refugee camps in the Northern West Bank. So this wasn't just a case of BB talking tough. All indications were that this was serious, and it could really take off. That said, this would have been a massive escalation. At a time when the IDF has already been stretched thin across half a dozen fronts for years, the West Bank itself is home to more than 3 million Palestinians, so an operation on this scale would be no small feat, especially when you consider the entire population of Israel is only a little more than 10 million people. By the following day, the government scaled back what it was promising, in terms of the scale, if not the intensity. They stopped short of a lockdown of the entire West Bank, with Netanyahu instead announcing an effective cordon of Hebron, the neighboring city, of Hullhul, and a collection of smaller towns and villages between the two. Israeli forces rolled in to seal off the area, closing roads, setting up checkpoints, and restricting movements in and out of the two cities. By Sunday, the IDF reported that it had carried out operations in more than 400 locations, and arrested some 40 Palestinians. It alleged were affiliated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other militant groups. Now, here we want to be clear that we're not hitting Israel for responding to attack on its soldiers. By this point, it's well known that if you attack Israel, they will hit back, I mean, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. But this was not the full extent of the response, despite the walk-back from the talk of a lockdown across the West Bank. No. Some of the most extensive operations kicked off after the initial raids, and took the form of soldiers beginning to order residents of certain neighborhoods in Hebron to evacuate their homes, sometimes making the announcement over loudspeakers in the middle of the night. The army subsequently moved into the evacuated neighborhoods, occupying buildings, and carrying out house-to-house searches. Fast forward a half a week later, and the number of Palestinians forced from their homes had grown to some 5,000, according to Hebron's municipal officers, who said that they had no idea how long this was going to go on. Defense Minister Katz said that they wouldn't be allowed back until Israel had finished dealing with what he alleged was Hamas infrastructure in the area. But for those residents who were made temporarily homeless on the countable of this, Katz was essentially saying that they'd be free to return sometime between quarter past maybe and half past never. Beyond just the housing situation, the economic costs of the operation have been piling up on the Palestinian side as well. Hebron is one of the West Bank's most important industrial centers, accounting for some 40% of its industrial output, and 30% of exports. Israeli forces have demolished factories and other commercial buildings during the operation, with one businessman, Sufjan al-Qasami, estimating that his family alone has suffered some $19 million in damages. While it might be easy to imagine the military lining up behind BB4 and last hurrah in the West Bank, this could not be further from the truth, which raises questions all its own about who's really calling the shots in Jerusalem. When politics reigns supreme. For all of the rhetoric coming out of the PM's office over the attack, there was one inconvenient problem emerging behind the scenes. The military that Netanyahu had ordered into Hebron was not particularly enthusiastic about being there. As time went on, they would grow increasingly confused as to what exactly the point of this whole operation was. Again, the opening rounds of the response that saw the arrest of suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad members in Hebron were not controversial with Israeli officers. It was all the other stuff that came after it that's proven to be far more contentious. On Saturday, barely 36 hours after the shooting, senior IDF officials were reportedly getting ready to take the win, call it a day, and roll out. As far as they were concerned, the operation had already accomplished what it could, and there wasn't much else that could be done. That, of course, is not how things played out. Netanyahu and Katz wanted the crackdown to continue, and that's what they got. By Sunday, though, this was starting to cause issues with the military's leadership. The IDF's chief of staff, Ayal Zameer, who Beebe has also been sparring with over whether or not Israel should engage Iran again, took his concerns about the West Bank operation to the PM. Based on Israel's Khan network, Zameer informed Beebe that there was no longer any operational justification for the deployment, and perhaps more importantly, no justification for continuing to prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes. Netanyahu, for his part, refused to budge, ordering the military to stay and keep searching for more Hamas hardware and personnel. That search, however, was hardly yielding the treasure-trover weapons that Beebe may have been imagining. By Monday, Israeli soldiers had reportedly searched some 500 buildings in evacuated neighborhoods and recovered a grand total of, wait for it, two firearms. That number rose to a total of three on Wednesday. While that may technically be something, it's hardly a problem that warrants such an expansive military operation, and it's not just the army's leadership that knows this operation is sort of fl amed out. In a separate report, Khan interviewed a number of soldiers taking part in the operation, and they were not shy about sharing their stance. "We're just sitting at these locations doing nothing. We conducted searches, looked for weaponry, and found what there was to find. Right now, we're just wasting time." Another said, "You can always find another handgun or another Hamas flag, but that's not the objective. There are soldiers here, who haven't been home for 28 days, simply because someone doesn't want to admit that the operation has ended." And I mean, what could we say? We're not gonna put words in the soldiers' mouths on who they mean by that someone, but we think it's pretty clear who that special someone is. There are signs that the military could be about to get its way. According to the Jerusalem Post, the IDF could withdraw from Hebron, nor significantly reduce its presence as early as this weekend, with Netanyahu reportedly more willing to listen to his command and now that the election is over. The concerns here weren't entirely rooted in altruistic humanitarianism for the Palestinians who have been displaced, nor were they just about getting soldiers home. According to a later report from the Jerusalem Post, officers in the IDF's central command were getting concerned that continuing to occupy these neighborhoods could actually undermine Israeli security. Their argument was that keeping thousands of Palestinians displaced, especially after the original attackers had already been killed and the searches had largely been concluded, they were creating exactly the sort of resentment the groups like Hamas could exploit. When you look at what's been happening across the wider West Bank, it's hard to dismiss those concerns as being unwarranted. As we quoted at the start of today's episode, Hamas has very much portrayed the recent attack as a defensive one, and while the legitimacy of their claim is doubtlessly going to come down to who you are, on what side of the conflict, nevertheless is how Hamas views attacks like these. As we've previously covered extensively on warfront, attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have been escalating for years, especially under the current outgoing government. This is due in large part to the role that Itamar Ben-Gvira has played as national security minister, a man who has previously convicted under Israeli law of supporting a Jewish terror organization. And the numbers here have become genuinely staggering. According to the UN, more than 2,000 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage have been recorded across the West Bank since the beginning of 2026, which puts us somewhere around an average of six to seven per day. This has actually escalated recently, with the ongoing olive harvest being particularly valid. There have been at least 160 attacks recorded in just the first two weeks of October. And increasingly, it's not just Palestinians coming under attack. On October the 16th, Israeli settlers severely beat Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine, who is herself Jewish, while she was covering the crisis here. The attackers broke one of her ribs and fractured four vertebrae. The next day, masked settlers attacked a delegation of European diplomats visiting the predominantly Christian village of Tiber, enduring several of them. Israeli police subsequently arrested 10 suspects in connection with these incidents, though nine were reportedly released to house arrest. And all of this is unfolding at a time when Israel's political situation has never looked murkier. Netanyahu may be the man giving the orders for now, but after this week's election, nobody knows for how much longer and that uncertainty is likely going to weigh heavily with the generals expected to carry out his orders. A government in limbo. Now, with all of this going on, Israel's military is finding itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position. On the one hand, it's responsible for maintaining security in the country and it's meant to be an apolitical body in which all Israelis, Jewish, Druze, along with many Arabs, are expected to serve. On the other, it ultimately serves at the pleasure of the elected political class in Jerusalem and the politicians sitting atop that political class all seem increasingly willing to disregard the recommendations of their own commanders. This is particularly surprising given the reputation that Netanyahu is built in the country throughout his career. For most of his time in Israeli politics, Beebe could count on the military being broadly supportive of security policies There were disagreements, sure, but his reputation as Mr. Security preceded him. That reputation rested at least partially on his close relationship with the country's security establishment. The clash over what to do in the immediate future with the West Bank and especially her bronze and its surrounding areas is ultimately not going to be a make or break issue for the Jewish state, but it is representative of a bigger clash going on in Jerusalem as we speak. As we covered in our election episode earlier this week, Netanyahu and Zameer were also butting heads over the possibility of renewed military action against Iran and according to Israel's Channel 12, Zameer pushed back on instructions from the PM to prepare an operation that he feared could escalate into another war. That operation never came to fruition, indicating that Zameer still holds or at least held a degree of sway over what Israel does. One net in Yahoo ostensibly wanted to prevent a massive dispute with the military for breaking out before the election, voting is now over and there's considerable speculation about what happens next. Just a day before Israelis entered the polls, a report came out that BB was planning to sack Zameer if he managed to form another government with sources describing their relationship as essentially beyond repair. Netanyahu, it should be noted, has vehemently denied these reports as nonsense, but the fallout from all of this has been difficult to overstate. Avidor Lieberman, who previously served as Netanyahu's own defense minister, went so far as to write to Israel's Attorney General demanding that she investigate the PM for treason over the whole thing, while other opposition leaders accused him of trying to use a war with Iran to interfere with the election. Whether those accusations actually go anywhere, that's another matter entirely, but the fact that Israel has reached this point is concerning in and of itself. This is especially true, given that the election they were fighting over hasn't actually resolved itself at least at the time of recording. Netanyahu lost his majority the other day, but the Zionist opposition failed to get a majority themselves, so the countries currently in a state of limbo wait for someone to figure out how to break that logjam. During that process, Netanyahu will remain in power, even if it takes months to actually throw together a coalition that can reach a majority. Israel's parliamentary system means that the outgoing PM continues operating until a replacement can secure a majority in the Knesset, and that includes authority over the military. Caretaker governments are generally expected to exercise restraint when making major decisions, but this is an institutional norm, it's not a legal prohibition. Basically, it's just run on the honor system. And for Netanyahu, a major new confrontation, whether in the West Bank or with Iran, could offer a way out of his political predicament. A sufficiently serious crisis could allow him to present his continued leadership as a matter of national security, while putting pressure on opposition politicians to set aside their objections and join a unity government. After all, it's one thing to refuse to work with BB under normal circumstances, but another entirely to be accused of putting political rivalries ahead of national security during a major military confrontation. Given that opposition leaders have already lined up one by one to slam Netanyahu for attempting to do precisely that with Iran, this isn't exactly conspiracy theor izing either. All of this leaves a mere and the rest of the IDF's leadership in a hell of an awkward position. Netanyahu is unequivocally their boss, whether they'd like it or not, for now at least. Given that BB could still emerge from coalition negotiations with another German office, openly defying him could be curtains for a given general's military career. But depending on how hard BB pushes, the alternative is hardly appealing either. If the generals simply go along with operations, when they themselves do not believe the operations have any military justification, and are instead being used to save BB's government, they risk allowing the armed forces to become politicized. And with nobody knowing who will be running the country a few months from now, that is an incredibly difficult line to walk. Realistically, the West Bank may very well be, where we find out who really is calling the shots in Israel long before the K nesset does. Just in a way that the Knesset might not have ever asked for. Thank you for watching.