Israeli troops locked down the occupied West Bank's most populous city Hebron and surrounding villages today after two Israelis were killed in Palestinian attacks nearby.
The crackdown comes amid a flare-up in nine months of deadly violence as the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan looms, and after key diplomatic players called for urgent steps by both sides to revive the moribund peace process.
Troops had closed all exit roads from Hebron except for the main northern one, an AFP correspondent reported.
Palestinian security said the army had opened entrances to the villages of Sair and Halhul, but an Israeli military spokeswoman said they had been partially open from the beginning.
The army yesterday said it would also deploy two additional battalions to the area.
The measures were described as the "most substantial steps on the ground" since 2014, when Israeli forces carried out a huge search operation in the southern West Bank for three young hitchhikers abducted and later found murdered by Palestinian militants.
At least 214 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a wave of violence that has rocked Israel and the Palestinian territories since October.
The army has said that around 80 of the attacks on Israelis have been carried out by Palestinians from the Hebron area.
Several hundred Jewish settlers live in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city of more than 200,000 Palestinians, a persistent source of tensions.
On Thursday, 19-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Nasser Tarayra broke into the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron and killed 13-year-old Israeli-American Hallel Yaffa Ariel in her bedroom before being shot dead by a security guard.
Yesterday, 48-year-old Michael Mark was killed after his car was fired on by a suspected Palestinian gunman south of Hebron.
The army was conducting searches for the gunman today.
An army spokesman said the closure was "intended to break the chain of lethal attacks."
"The physical presence will also disrupt, prevent and foil additional attacks, inspired by the attackers of the last 48 hours," Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told AFP.
