IDF 98th Division ends West Bank command after 1,500 operations, 140 arrests

The headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces' 98th Division has finished its deployment in the West Bank and handed back command of the area's southern sector, the IDF spokesperson announced on Sunday. Since September 25, the division headquarters had overseen the Judea and Etzion regional brigades, two units that normally answer to the military's permanent West Bank command, the Judea and Samaria Division.

According to the military, troops under the headquarters carried out more than 1,500 counterterrorism operations during the deployment, detained more than 140 suspects and located about 35 weapons. The IDF said on X that two soldiers, Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, were killed during the period. The division will now move to standby, The Times of Israel reported, citing the military, with a focus on "readiness and preparations for future scenarios."

What the deployment involved

The arrangement was a command reinforcement rather than a large influx of troops. The Times of Israel reported that the 98th Division brought its headquarters into the territory without bringing its own organic units, meaning the brigades that ordinarily belong to the division stayed out. Instead, its staff took charge of the two existing regional brigades responsible for the southern part of the West Bank.

In Israeli military structure, a division headquarters is the command layer that sits above several brigades, coordinating intelligence, planning and operations across a wider area. Placing a second division headquarters over part of the West Bank allowed the Judea and Samaria Division to concentrate on a smaller sector. The IDF spokesperson said the purpose was to strengthen command and control and to reinforce both defensive and offensive activity. The Times of Israel, citing the military, described it as a way of easing the load on the Judea and Samaria Division at a time of heightened tensions.

Judea and Samaria, Etzion and Hebron

"Judea and Samaria" is the term the Israeli government and military use for the West Bank, drawn from the biblical names for the hills south and north of Jerusalem. The Judea and Samaria Division is the IDF formation permanently in charge of the territory, and it is divided into regional brigades, each covering a geographic sector.

The two brigades placed under the 98th Division cover the south. The Judea Regional Brigade operates around Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, while the Etzion Regional Brigade takes its name from Gush Etzion, a bloc of Israeli settlements between Jerusalem and Hebron. Both areas contain Israeli settlements and Palestinian towns in close proximity.

Two soldiers killed

The deaths of Roytman and Svilem are described differently by the two sources that mention them. The Times of Israel said the two died when shots were fired at a Hebron-area checkpoint. The IDF's own post said they fell in an encounter with terrorists and credited them with preventing a serious attack on Israeli civilians. The reports do not give the date of the incident.

How the figures were reported

All the numbers in the coverage originate with the military. The IDF statement and the Hebrew-language channel N12, in a report by Nitzan Shapira, described the totals as more than 1,500 operations and more than 140 suspects detained, with roughly 35 weapons found. The Times of Israel gave the figures as 1,500 operations and 140 arrests, without the qualifier, and some 35 weapons seized. The difference is one of phrasing rather than substance, but readers should note that the IDF frames them as minimum figures.

The Times of Israel also described the mission as lasting just over a month, though the dates in the reports, a start on September 25 and an announced completion on November 8, span a somewhat longer period.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports explains what "operations" covers, whether raids, arrests, patrols or other activity, or how many of the more than 140 people detained have been charged. The military has not said what prompted the decision to end the deployment now, or what the "heightened tensions" cited at its start consisted of. No Palestinian account of the period, and no figure for Palestinian casualties during the operations, appears in the material.