Lebanon today »an Israeli punitive tool .. What do we know about the demolition of homes in Palestine?

Scenes of demolishing, blowing up and destroying Palestinian homes have emerged significantly in recent times, especially in the Gaza Strip, which was subjected to an Israeli extermination war and brutal crimes for 15 months, along with the northern West Bank areas that are witnessing a wide aggression these days, according to what a new report says to Arabi 21.

In its initial report, the government media office in Gaza stated that the direct losses due to the Israeli genocide exceeded 50 billion dollars in various sectors, noting that 450 thousand housing units were destroyed, including 170 units that were completely demolished, 80 thousand were eloquent, and 200 thousand partially damaged.

Returning to the history of Israel, the demolition of homes is used by the Israeli army in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as a punitive tool for the Palestinians, due to the continued resistance and military operations, with the aim of forming a strong deterrent to them.

Human rights institutions emphasized that “Israel is already using demolitions, to collect the Palestinians collectively, seize their property, and to expand settlement as well.”

History of demolition

After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1968, the legal advisor of the then Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Theoder Miroun, advised that the demolition of homes violated the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 regarding the protection of civilians in the war.

In practice, Israel ignored Miroun’s advice, and during the second intifada, the Israeli army adopted the policy of demolishing homes after a wave of martyrdom operations, and Tel Aviv justified these crimes on the basis that they are deterrent policies.

In 2005, the Israeli Ministry of Defense ordered the end of the demolition of homes for the purpose of punishing, unless there is a severe change in circumstances, yet demolitions continued, for other reasons.

In 2010, Israel demolished 315 buildings owned by Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem, and in 2016 the Israeli army demolished more than a thousand homes.

Demolition means

The Israeli army has followed several means of demolitions, which started using various military bulldozers, including armored vehicles, as well as excavators for multi -storey buildings and wheel bulldozers, for small homes with low risk.

The Israeli army often used the heavy armored D9 when there is a danger caused by the demolition of the building, for example when armed resistance fighters are trapped inside the building.

Among the most widespread means in recent times are the bombers resulting from the transplantation of explosives in a house or several houses, as happened in recent days in Jenin, when the Israeli army blew 23 houses at once.

The Israeli army pursued this method widely during the extermination war in the Gaza Strip, and this was evident in blowing up large residential squares in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as the massive destruction operations in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Legal status

The use of house demolition under international law today is subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention, which was issued in 1949, and which protects non -fighters in the occupied territories. Article 53 states that “any destruction on the part of Israel for real estate or individual or collectively owned personality of ordinary people … prohibited, unless the military operations require this destruction.”

The demolition of homes is a form of collective punishment, and according to Israeli law, it prohibits the destruction of property, except for the causes of the extreme military necessity.

However, Israel, a party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, confirms that the provisions of the agreement do not apply to the Palestinian territories on the basis that the lands do not form a state as a party to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This position is rejected by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, which indicates that it is “one of the basic principles of the Human Rights Law that international human rights treaties apply in all areas where state states exercise actual control, regardless of whether they are exercising sovereignty in That region or not. ”