Days after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to destroy the homes of Palestinians accused of violence against Israeli Jews, Human Rights Watch has called for a moratorium on the policy.
Earlier this week, Israeli authorities destroyed the home of a Palestinian accused of a hit-and-run attack which killed two people, and they issued demolition orders on the homes of two other suspects.
Human Rights Watch claims that the demolitions are “collective punishment” and a “war crime” when carried out in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The organization cited five demolitions or sealings of homes this year, and said seven others have been threatened.
The Israeli military ended a policy of punitive home demolitions in 1998, but reinstated it after the start of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. Over the next five years, Israeli forces destroyed more than 650 Palestinian homes, displacing more than 4,000 people.
The practice was suspended in 2005 after an Israeli study found that found it did nothing to deter Palestinian attacks on Israelis, but demolitions were also carried out in 2009.
Israeli authorities maintain that Palestinian families can object to demolition orders within 48 hours and appeal to Israel’s high court. However, Israeli judges have refused to apply the absolute prohibition in customary international law against the collective punishment of civilians in occupied territory, ruling it as “proportionate” if balanced against the need to deter other Palestinians from carrying out attacks.
