As Israel votes, ever more strident hard-right views compete with hopes for a diverse land. The outcome could shape the countryβs identity for years.
A banner for the Likud party and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, with the slogan, βThe Right or Palestine.β Other candidates in the elections are to the left of it.
Supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have expressed intense anxieties about isolation abroad, security at home and the future of Israelβs identity.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israelβs prime minister, speaking to supporters in the food court of a shopping mall in Holon, Israel, during a campaign visit this month.
The operation, focused on the city of Hebron, the site of Friday's attack, came as Israel enters the final days before a tense election, which is largely seen as a referendum on current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership and security policies during the past three years of war.
Hundreds of Palestinian families fled their homes as the Israeli military raided Hebron. The operation came a day after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning that also left two suspected gunmen dead, the military said, violence that is likely to heighten political tensions and security concerns ahead of Israel's parliamentary election next week.
Israeli police did not identify the suspects or specify their roles in the attacks, which came during a spike in settler violence during the annual Palestinian olive harvest season.
The attack on Heidi Levine and Palestinians during the sensitive olive harvest again highlights the rampant settler violence that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed on a small number of troublemakers.
In Saturday's attack in the village of Taybeh, settlers targeted Belgium's consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said.
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages across the occupied West Bank on Friday, setting fire to cars and trees and beating residents and a Washington Post photographer, in the latest violence to disrupt the territory's annual olive harvest this month.
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