The IDF detained dozens of Palestinians on Thursday in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, just hours after a roadside bomb near the Nitzanei Oz crossing wounded two soldiers lightly.
Videos shared by local residents showed troops marching the detainees in a line through the city’s streets, as part of the collective measures the Central Command has been enforcing following attacks.
Dozens of detained Palestinians marching through Tulkarm
The attack took place on the Palestinian side of the Nitzanei Oz crossing near Tulkarm. Following the explosion, the IDF imposed a closure on the city, setting up roadblocks and conducting searches as part of the manhunt for the attackers, identified as members of Islamic Jihad.
In recent months, the Central Command has increased the use of collective pressure on Palestinian communities after attacks, on a scale not seen in some 22 years, since the second intifada. One such measure was the uprooting of olive trees near the village of al-Murayir in the northern West Bank after a gunman shot at a shepherd and escaped. Palestinians condemned the uprooting as collective punishment, but the IDF said the clearing was necessary to prevent further danger.
Maj. Gen. Avi Blot, head of IDF Central Command, said after that incident: “Every village and every enemy must know that if they carry out an attack against residents, they will pay a heavy price and experience curfews, closures and shaping operations. A village produces an attack? No problem. You want a spotlight on you? We know how to shine a spotlight.”
In the days following the deadly shooting at Jerusalem’s Ramot junction, where six Israelis were killed, the IDF imposed a curfew on the villages of Katna and Qubeiba, where the two gunmen lived. Defense Minister Israel Katz later announced that all illegal structures in the villages would be demolished and revoked 750 work permits and entry approvals from relatives of the attackers and other residents.
Knesset member Yitzhak Kroizer of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party praised the Tulkarm operation. Writing on X, he said: “Left, right, left! Our heroic soldiers in an arrest parade against the vile terrorists who tried to harm our forces in Tulkarm. With enemies we speak only through force.”