On October 22, 2015,
HaMoked filed nine petitions to the High Court of Justice (HCJ), requesting to instruct the military to cancel the orders issued on October 15, 2015, for the punitive demolition of six homes in the West Bank; this, following the military’s rejection of the objections HaMoked had filed on behalf of both the families whose homes are targeted and their close neighbors. Six High Court petitions were filed for the families, and three for the neighbors.
The state was asked to submit its response to HaMoked’s petitions by October 27, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. That morning, the state requested an extension from the court until 14:00. The court partially granted the state’s request, and gave it two more hours, until 12:00 a.m., to submit its response.
In its response to HaMoked’s petitions, the state maintained that Regulation 119, which empowers the military commander to demolish the homes of people suspected of involvement in attacks, is exercised in the framework of several balances, while weighting “the severity of the deeds; the circumstances of time and place; the assailant’s residential link to the house; the size of the house;
the impact of using this measure on on other people” (emphasis added) and so on. The state also emphasized “according to the judicial precedent, the harm to other people … does not constitute collective punishment, it is rather
only attendant harm to the deterrence goal of exercising this authority” (emphasis added).
With regard to the claims about lack of evidence to establish the guilt of some of the suspected assailants, the state responded that it has “open evidence”, sufficient to establish the decision to seek the demolition of the suspects’ homes. Moreover, the state claimed that it has “classified material which can be displayed in the presence of one party only”.
With regard to the heavy damage that might result to the apartments adjacent to the targeted apartments, the state persisted in refusing to allow HaMoked to view the expert opinion as to the demolition mode. The state claimed that “the professional action which was examined and selected by the professional entities… is the mode which… allows fulfilling the military commander’s decision, out of consideration of the need to avoid as much as possible damage to the neighboring structures, or the parts of the structures which are not slated for demolition”. The state also noted that during the demolition, an engineer would be present on site, who would oversee all of the stages “in order to ensure the aforesaid ‘in real time’”. The state detailed various demolition methods to be used in each case. Thus, for example, in two of the apartments in Nablus which are targeted for demolition – in consequence of which families with their children are liable to be left without shelter, and of many other families are liable to suffer property damage – “controlled exothermic explosion, that is small explosive charges in the rooms of the apartments, to create a shockwave which will make the floor inhabitable”.
The state asked the court to “rule on the petitions as soon as possible”.
