About a month ago, my wife asked me: "Did you see that two-story house they demolished in the West Bank? What a shame, it was a beautiful house built with white stone. Why did the Israelis destroy it? What did the owners do?" Her question pained me greatly. When I watched the video earlier that day, I felt my heart sink so deep that I couldn't finish it. I tried to ignore it as if it hadn't happened. I always dreamed of having my own house, two stories high, big enough for my large family, built in white stone, just like that one.

I answered her: "Do you think they really need a reason to demolish a Palestinian home? It could be anything. They will use any excuse to inflict more suffering on people, to force them to leave their homeland." She nodded bitterly, and I felt lucky that I didn't have a home, so I wouldn't have to experience the pain of losing it.

From the time Israel occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967 until 2015, according to the Committee Against Israeli Home Demolitions, it destroyed a total of 48,488 Palestinian structures. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-2005), Israel razed some 3,000 homes to the ground. The official Israeli response was: "This measure is used as an effective deterrent against the perpetrators and those who sent them, not as a punitive measure."

Some Palestinians have lost their homes more than once, even three times, along with furniture and possessions. More recently, especially in the Gaza Strip, Israel has begun what it calls "warning" homeowners before bombing them, either by calling them or their neighbors if they cannot reach them, asking them to evacuate the house within 10 minutes. Since the first war on Gaza (2008-2009), Israel has developed another method called "roof knocking," in which unexploded or low-explosive shells are fired at the roof of the targeted house.

If residents do not get the message or refuse to leave their homes, they will have to bear the consequences, as happened to Hamas intellectual and leader Nizar Rayyan and his family. He and his family of 16 were killed instantly, including 11 children, by three missiles fired from U.S. F-16 aircraft. The five-story building collapsed, along with two neighboring houses, injuring 46 people, including 16 severely traumatized children.

In another famous incident, almost seven years earlier, on July 23, 2003, US-made F-16s dropped a one-ton bomb on a three-story building, causing eight adjacent buildings to collapse in one of Gaza's most densely populated neighborhoods. The attack killed top Hamas military commander Salah Shehadeh, his wife and daughter, and 15 other Palestinians, including eight children, one of whom was only two months old, while 170 others were injured.

Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's chief of staff at the time, announced that they made the decision knowing that Shehadeh's wife and children were in the house. Among the Israeli officials involved in the incident were Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, his military advisor Michael Herzog, former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, and Air Force Commander Dan Halutz. Six of the victims have filed a lawsuit against them in a Spanish court, demanding that they be tried as war criminals.

Terrorists and war criminals in Israel are not punished; they become prime ministers, such as David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon. In one incident of revenge, Sharon led the 101 Special Unit, infiltrated the West Bank village of Qibya at night, planted mines around the houses and blew them up while the occupants were asleep. Forty-five homes, a mosque and a school were destroyed, and at least 69 people were killed, some 70% of them women and children. Countries around the world, including the United States, condemned the "shocking attack," suspended military aid, and demanded that those responsible be tried and convicted.

Ben-Gurion, who gave the order, retained his position as prime minister, and Sharon was hailed as a national hero, later becoming prime minister in 2001. During his tenure, he committed countless massacres, including the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982, in which 3,500 civilians were killed by his Maronite militia allies under his direct supervision.

Surprisingly, Israel's own investigations have proven that collective punishment, especially house demolitions, does not deter Palestinian perpetrators, but rather increases their anger and convinces more young people to join the struggle, leading to more deaths on both sides. The only justifiable reason for this inhumane and futile punishment is the attempt by Israeli politicians to present themselves as capable of protecting illegal settlers in the West Bank and the rest of the occupied territories. Until the day the international community succeeds in stopping Israeli crimes, Palestinian children and civilians will continue to pay the price for Israeli political victories.
Source: Middle East Monitor