The occupation army sent new military reinforcements to Qabatiya, and its vehicles spread throughout its neighborhoods, while its bulldozers closed main streets leading to the town with earthen barriers, while continuing to impose a curfew and storming a large number of homes, destroying their contents and bulldozing streets and infrastructure.
The occupation forces also turned the house of Ahmed Abu al-Rub, the perpetrator of the Beisan and Afula operation, into a military barracks, and took a number of young men to it and abused them. They also arrested several Palestinians from the town, including Ahmed Hassan Nazzal, Yasser Khuzaymiya, Firas Taleb, Niji Nazzal, and Jaafar Shaboot.
On Friday, two Israelis were killed and two others were injured in a car-ramming and stabbing attack in the northern Israeli cities of Beit She'an and Afula. Tel Aviv subsequently launched a large-scale military operation in the town of Qabatiya, claiming that the perpetrator was from there.
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday that the attack followed "instructions issued to the army to prepare for expanding its military activity in Qabatiya." Israeli authorities stated that the perpetrator was from the town of Qabatiya, while the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth identified him as Ahmed Abu al-Rub, 37 years old.
Israeli forces arrested the father and brother of the perpetrator of the car-ramming and stabbing attack on Friday, after raiding their home in Qabatiya, and took them to an unknown location. They also subjected members of the perpetrator's family to interrogation, according to local sources.
This Israeli operation falls under the policy of collective punishment adopted by the army against Palestinian towns from which citizens carry out operations, a policy prohibited under international humanitarian law and considered a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions.
Since January 21, 2025, the occupation army has been continuing a large-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, which it started in the Jenin camp and then expanded to the Nur Shams and Tulkarm camps.
Since then, the army has imposed a tight siege on the three camps, and continues to destroy infrastructure, homes and shops of citizens, which has led to the displacement of about 50,000 Palestinians, according to official data.
Simultaneously, Israel is intensifying its policies aimed at annexing the West Bank, through the demolition of Palestinian homes, displacement of Palestinians, and expansion of settlements, according to Palestinian authorities, which would undermine the two-state solution stipulated in UN resolutions.
In the central West Bank, on Saturday morning the occupation army closed the entrances to the villages of Ni’lin, Bil’in and Kharbatha Bani Harith, west of Ramallah, by closing the iron gates and preventing entry and exit, following reports of gunfire at a military checkpoint in the area.
Local sources reported that these measures are hindering the movement of residents of 13 Palestinian villages to and from Ramallah. For its part, the Israeli army announced that a shooting incident occurred near the Hashmonaim checkpoint, with no injuries reported, adding that a security cordon had been established and search operations were underway in the area.
Israeli forces also closed the Atara military checkpoint north of Ramallah, causing disruption to the movement of citizens, especially those coming from and leaving villages northwest and west of the city, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).
According to a report by the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, the number of permanent and temporary checkpoints dividing Palestinian lands reached 916 checkpoints and gates, amid a continuous Israeli escalation that includes raids, arrests, house demolitions and settlement expansion.
