Israel heads to polls: West Bank crossings shut, dispute over meeting with police chief
Israel is closing land crossings with the West Bank on election day. The Shin Bet is protecting more party leaders, and the opposition wants to stop a meeting between Netanyahu and the police chief.
Archive image · Photo: L-BBE / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Ahead of Tuesday's Knesset election, Israel is tightening security. The army will lock down the West Bank on election day and land crossings will remain closed, according to The Times of Israel. Palestinian workers with permits are barred from entering settlements on Sunday and Monday; about 9,000 Palestinians hold such work permits. Two days before the vote, the military also began a pre-planned multifront drill in the north and center of the country.
The Shin Bet security service is taking over protection of Democrats leader Yair Golan and, according to reports, of Ofer Winter, head of the People of Israel party. A meeting between Police Commissioner Danny Levy, Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which according to Hebrew media was to discuss election integrity, has sparked controversy. The Yashar party asked the Central Elections Committee and the attorney general to cancel it. Likud said the meeting was a follow-up to a security discussion with all heads of the security establishment and not about election integrity.
According to The Times of Israel, Hamas delivered a threat via the UN humanitarian coordinator to carry out "an attack such as the October 7 attack." In the West Bank, Palestinian media reported that settlers vandalized several Palestinian cars overnight in Sinjil near Ramallah. In Jalud, troops removed settlers from a Palestinian home, after which a fire broke out there, the army said; the cause is under investigation.