Israel is once more demolishing the homes of restive Palestinians

WITH the walls stripped bare and the furniture dismantled, members of the Abu Jamal family gathered last week for perhaps the final Friday lunch in a home that will soon be blown up. Alaa Abu Jamal, a married father of three, drove his car into a Jerusalem bus stop on October 13th, and then hacked a bystander to death with a meat cleaver. He was shot by a security guard and arrested. Israeli authorities decided to destroy his family’s home in Jebel al-Mukaber, a grim district in East Jerusalem, as a further punishment. The courts have imposed a one-week stay, but the demolition could still occur early in November.

It is a controversial practice based on emergency regulations imposed by the British Mandate in 1945, which authorised commanders to destroy the homes of Palestine’s restive inhabitants. Israel demolished or sealed 1,300 houses in the two decades after it occupied the West Bank in 1967, and hundreds more during the first and second intifadas, or Palestinian uprisings.