The military on Sunday issued a defense of IDF Central Command chief Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth’s decision last Thursday to clear a massive number of trees to achieve better security oversight of the area of Al-Mughayir village near Ramallah.
Bluth, as part of his role, is responsible for IDF activity in the West Bank.
Palestinians and the outlet Haaretz have claimed that Bluth did not act only out of narrow security considerations, but also out of some attempt to deter Palestinian terror through collective punishment, citing his statements about making problematic villages pay for the actions of terrorists coming from those villages.
Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken on Sunday went as far as to call Bluth a “war criminal” whom the International Criminal Court should stop and arrest.
The IDF responded that the massive tree removal took place both in order to catch the terrorist from Al-Mughayir who, on Thursday, shot a Jewish Israeli civilian in the head near the Malachi Hashalom area, northeast of Ramallah, as well as to improve the ability of security forces to intercept such terrorists in advance, following multiple incidents along the Alon Corridor roads.
In May, Palestinian terrorists murdered Tzeela Gez, a 30-year-old mother of three, in a drive-by shooting on Route 446 near Peduel junction in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria (West Bank).
That terrorist cell perpetrated a number of terror attacks in the area.
The Palestinian terrorist who murdered 14-year-old Binyamin Ahimeir In April 2024 came from the Al-Mughayir area.
The Jerusalem Post understands that this terror attack also impacted the decision regarding clearer oversight in the Alon Corridor area.
Besides those incidents that are reported and are among the most deadly terror incidents – the Post understands that there has also been – often unreported – regular rock throwing from the area, with the rock throwers often using the trees for cover to approach the road and then escape.
Further, the Post understands that the IDF believes that the existence of the tree area facilitated, for terrorists in the area, the development, transport, and placing of improvised explosive devices, as well as lighting fires to cause danger to Israeli civilians in the area.
Various West Bank terror attacks in recent weeks
There have also been a variety of other terror attacks in recent weeks in other parts of the West Bank.
Nevertheless, it is unusual for the IDF to uproot that many trees after one or even multiple terror attacks in an area.
In past years, multiple terror attacks from one area would more likely lead to a temporary closure of the village and a large number of arrests in the village.
Villagers are claiming that every house was inspected and many ransacked without a specific justification.
But the harsher treatment of those trees falls in line more with Bluth and the government’s new policy in the West Bank of destroying portions of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur-al Shams after those areas have repeatedly been the source of terror attacks.
While Israel received significant global criticism for these moves, the IDF, however, noted that there has been an 85% drop in terror since the start of 2025.
Around January this year, the IDF adopted the policy of destroying portions of Jenin viewed as hosting the most significant volumes of terror cells started.
It is unclear how international legal officials will treat these new strategies used by Israel.
Some ICC officials have suggested adding alleged crimes by the IDF in the West Bank into their cases against Israel, but to date, all the alleged charges have been related to Gaza.