"They are strategically planning for the creation of a Jews-only area, which would tie Kiryat Arba, the Cave of Machpela and the other downtown settlements together," says an expert from a multinational organisation that monitors Hebron.
On June 21st an army undercover squad in Hebron shot dead Abdullah Qawasmeh, a Hamas military leader who Israel says was behind the deaths of 40 people.
The governor of Hebron, Kamel Hmeid, said the men had been "executed" by Israel, whose forces made no attempt to detain or interrogate them.
The Hebron governor said: "We condemn this crime, this assassination, as deliberate and premeditated murder".
Marwan Qawasmeh, 29, and Amer Abu Aisha, 32, were shot dead in a pre-dawn gunfight on Tuesday with Israeli special forces who had fired a rocket at a house in Hebron where the pair had been hiding.
The IDF said a recent breakthrough in the hunt for the two Palestinian men had led the Yamam, a special police counter-terrorism unit, to the hideout in an area of Hebron about a week ago.
In a statement issued after Tuesday's operation in Hebron, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said: "We said from the start that Hamas is responsible for the kidnapping and murder.
Forces have been pulled out of the West Bank towns of Jenin, Hebron and from parts of Ramallah, though they remain in position near the offices there of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
The trip from Hebron to Ramallah takes less than an hour along the bypasses built exclusively for Israeli settlers.
In the south, talks are continuing, despite the bombing, between Israeli and Palestinian Authority officers over Israel's withdrawal from much of the town of Hebron and surrounding villages.
Some propose dividing the esplanade, as the Israeli authorities have done in Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, at the tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque.
