Home Demolitions: Past Practices

The demolition of homes has been used both as an Israeli policy to create more facts in the Occupied Territories and grabbing more lands, as well as in retribution for security-related offences by the Israeli military administration. This policy is rather an unique international phenomenon. No other government practices this form of collective punishment.

Several stages in Israel's policy's development regarding home demolition can be distinguished since 1967:

• 1967-mid 1970's: During this time practices of home demolition have been widespread. In the first year of the occupation, several villages in the Occupied Territories were either completely or partially destroyed, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless. In addition, at least 1,000 homes were demolished as a form of collective punishment during the first decade of the occupation.
• late 1970's-1985: Home demolitions and sealings in this period appear to have been largely confined to cases in which Israeli soldiers or colonists had been killed or wounded in armed attacks by Palestinians. The available documentation indicates that, in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), no more than 20 homes were demolished or destroyed per annum between the late 1970's and 1985.
• May 1985 - 9 December 1987: Shortly before their announcement of an "Iron Fist" policy toward the Occupied Territories in August of 1985, the Israeli military authorities began to increase the use of these punitive measures. Of the 55 cases documented by a Palestinian human rights organisation in the West Bank between May and December of 1985 (a rather sharp increase), 24 (43.6%) were demolished, a further 24 (43.6%) were completely sealed, and the other 7 (12.8%) were partially sealed.
• Since 9 December 1987, the Israeli military authorities have used the harshest form of this measure available to them, reversing the trend it pursued in the months prior to the Intifada: increased the proportion of demolitions to sealings (and especially partial sealings); has been increasingly predisposed toward the demolition or sealing of a home even when no firearms were used or no injuries were reported; and has damaged greater numbers of adjacent houses in the process of carrying out demolitions. While the increase in the number of demolitions itself during the Intifada, could, perhaps be explained by the authorities as having been precipatated by the increase in the number of "security offenses", the change in criteria for the use of this measure, as well as the severity of its application, in fact brought into further question previous claims by the Israeli authorities that their use of demolition and sealing was confined to only "the most serious cases".