HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) against the
demolition orders issued for four homes of Palestinians suspected or implicated in recent attacks against Israelis – three of the homes are in Hebron District and one in Salfit District. On February 4, 2016, two petitions were filed:
one on behalf of the family of the suspect in an attack in Tel Aviv on November 19, 2015, from Dura, Hebron District;
the other on behalf of the family of the suspect in an attack in Gush Etzion on November 19, 2015, from Deir Samit, Hebron District. Another
petition was filed on February 7, 2016, on behalf of the family of an assailant who perpetrated an attack on November 4, 2015, at Halhul Junction, from Hebron. A fourth petition was filed on February 10, 2016, on behalf of the family of the suspect in an attack in the old city of Jerusalem, on October 3, 2015, from Qarawat Bani Hassan, Salfit District.
In the petition concerning the home in Dura, HaMoked stressed that the planned demolition would harm the man’s wife and five children who were living in the house and had no connection to the incident. HaMoked also recalled that a criminal proceeding against the man was still underway; and that despite its demand and the demolition order, once again HaMoked had not been provided with the investigation material held by the prosecution. In its response from February 9, 2016, the military noted the investigation material had been provided to HaMoked, and announced that it planned to carry out the demolition using engineering equipment, “therefore, no damage is expected to nearby structures”.
In the petition concerning the home in Deir Samit, HaMoked held that the order was founded on
faulty factual infrastructure, given that it was issued for an apartment on the middle floor of a three floor building, while the suspected youth lived on the ground floor. Moreover, protesting the fact that the military had not yet decided on the demolition method it would employ, HaMoked condemned “this unacceptable conduct, where the Respondent rushes to announce such a drastic measure before reaching final decision and conducting all necessary examinations”. From its response from February 9, 2016, it emerged that the military altered its demolition plan, and no longer intended to seal part of the apartment and manually demolish the other part, and instead planned to perform the demolition using engineering equipment, as a “more accurate and surgical” method.
In a petition concerning the home in Hebron, HaMoked noted that the assailant was a single man who had lived with his parents and four siblings; the father was suffering from mental illness and therefore unemployed, and the youngest brother was the main breadwinner of the family. HaMoked stressed that demolishing of the apartment would fatefully harm the family for no wrong it had done. Additionally, given the military’s plan to seal the apartment by injecting foamed plastic material, HaMoked demanded that the military refrain from demolishing as planned the apartment’ inner dividing walls, so as not to frustrate the possibility of future reprieve and the restoration of the property to its owners, a possibility established in Regulation 119, pursuant to which the military commander ordered the seizure and demolition of homes.
In response to the petition, the military held that “the serenity establishment in general, and the Respondent in particular, are aware and conscious of the severity of employing Regulation 119, especially when the sanction’s implementation is irreversible, as in demolition”. However, the military claimed that, “the damage to additional people in the terrorist’s home against which it has been decided to exercise the authority under Regulation 119, does not constitute collective punishment but is strictly collateral damage”.
In the last petition, concerning the home in Qarawat Bani Hassan, HaMoked strongly protested the military’s plan to demolish the family home of a youth suspected of having committed an attack given the fact the he was a student who had been living for three years now at the student dorm of Abu Dis University, and not at his parents’ home. HaMoked rejected the military’s stance, presented in its
response to the objection, whereby the occasional visits if the youth at his parents’ home were enough to substantiate sufficient affinity to thee home that justified using Regulation 119 in order to demolish the home – a home in which five people were living who had no connection to the incident. Furthermore, HaMoked recalled that a criminal proceeding concerning the youth was now underway, and that the degree of his involvement, if at all, in the ascribed deeds was yet unclear. Therefore, HaMoked argued, the decision to demolish the family home was entirely unacceptable and flagrantly unbalanced. In its
response to the petition, the military repeated its argument that there was sufficient affinity between the youth and his parent’s home, as “an apartment in the student dorms is temporary residence and does not replace the terrorist’s place of residence, to which he returned … during holidays and on weekends”.
In all petitions HaMoked reiterated its principle position whereby home demolition was an unacceptable and illegal punitive measure which violates the basic rights of innocent people. Moreover, HaMoked reaffirmed once again that the efficacy of the punitive demolition policy for deterring potential assailants had never been proven, but the real damage it was causing was accumulating.
Upon the petitions’ filing, the HCJ issued temporary orders prohibiting sealing or demolition of the homes pending another decision.
