On November 19-20, 2014,
the Home Front Command served house demolition orders to the nuclear families of four assailants in the recent lethal attacks in Jerusalem. The family members who live in the houses slated for demolition are not suspected or accused of any wrongdoing.
On November 22, 2014, HaMoked filed two objections against the intended demolition of houses;
one on behalf of the family of the suspect in the shooting of right wing activist Yehuda Glick;
the other on behalf of the family of the assailant in the vehicular attack at the "Shim'on Ha-Tsadik" station of the Jerusalem Light Rail.
Today, November 23, 2014,
two additional objections were filed on behalf of the families of the two assailants in the attack at a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in Jerusalem.
In the objection, HaMoked asserts that the demolition of a home is a cruel and inhuman act of doubtful efficacy, and that demolishing the family homes of the suspected assailants constitutes a deliberate attack against innocent people, in breach of international humanitarian law, which prohibits collective punishment and needless destruction of property. HaMoked also claims that Regulation 119 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of the British Mandate that authorizes such punishment has no place in the law books of a state that considers itself a democracy; further, that the fact that the military employs this regulation only when the attacker is a Palestinian, and the victim is a Jew, demonstrates extreme discrimination.
