Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a campaign of collective punishment on Palestinians in the West Bank after gunmen killed two Israeli soldiers near a checkpoint outside Hebron.

The Israeli army said Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman, 23, and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, 20, were killed and three others wounded during the attack near the Yehuda Junction outside the West Bank city of Hebron.

The two suspected gunmen, both Palestinians, were also killed in the incident, which is expected to heighten political tensions and security concerns ahead of next week’s parliamentary election.

Israeli forces have demolished buildings near a military checkpoint close to where the attack took place.

Relatives of the attackers have been detained and the Israeli military is present in that area.

“We will evacuate the residents, we will go house-by-house, we will also remove the weapons there, and all the terror infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed,” Netanyahu said.

A campaign billboard featuring Netanyahu, left, and his main rival Gadi Eisenkot, with a message in Hebrew that reads ‘the race is tight’. Photo: AP

The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted a video of himself in front of a bulldozer tearing down a Palestinian home near the site of the incident.

There was no claim of a connection between the building’s owners and the attackers.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he is deeply concerned by the closures and reports of home demolitions and possible displacement in Hebron.

“Those closures severely restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement, access to basic services and livelihoods,” he said.

Guterres recalled Israel’s obligation as the occupying power “to protect the Palestinian population from such attacks and to hold perpetrators to account”.

Human rights lawyer, Mohammed Dahleh, filed an urgent petition on behalf of two factory owners nearby, arguing that the demolition violated international law on collective punishment and Israeli administrative law.

Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife, Sara, speaks to supporters during an election campaign visit to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market. Photo: AP

“What we saw today was an attempt to copy the illegal practices used in Gaza, in the heart of the West Bank,” Dahleh said. “They want to wipe out entire areas exactly as they did in Gaza and the refugee camps in the West Bank.”

Israeli voters will decide next Tuesday whether to grant Netanyahu another term in office or usher in a new era of Israeli politics.

The election comes three years after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.