On November 26, 2015, the military
rejected HaMoked’s objections to military demolition orders issued for two homes in Jabal al-Mukabber, East Jerusalem. In its responses, the military announced that the demolitions would not be carried out before November 30, 2015, at 14:00. On November 30, 2015, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice to instruct the military to cancel the demolition orders, and in the interim, to stay their execution pending the court’s final decision.
One petition was filed against a demolition order the military issued for a house in Jabal al-Mukabber, in which lived the assailant who perpetrated the attack on Malkhei Yisrael St on October 13, 2015. The order targets the apartment on the bottom floor of a three-floor building, on which – according to the military – lived the youth together with his wife and three children; on the other floors live members of his extended family.
In the petition, HaMoked rejected the military’s claim that the family had falsify represented the facts and thus led the military to misidentify the assailant’s home. The military claimed that the youth, his wife and children did not live in the separate housing unit as was stated in the previous demolition order – later cancelled – but on the ground floor of the building, in the apartment now targeted for demolition, occupied by the assailant’s extended family. HaMoked asserted that the youth had in fact lived in the apartment initially targeted, while his sister, her husband and children, were the ones living in the apartment currently targeted.
Furthermore, HaMoked reiterated its position that demolishing assailants’ homes might perpetuate the cycle of bloodshed, as proved by the present case, where the youth whose family home is targeted for demolition had witnessed the military demolition of his cousin’s home – just one week before he carried out the attack on Malkhei Yisrael St.
Two additional petitions were filed against a demolition order issued for another home Jabal al-Mukabber, the family home of the assailant who perpetrated the attack in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon HaNatziv on October 13, 2015 –
one on behalf of the family, the other on behalf on the neighbors. The order targets the apartment, on the middle floor of a three-floor building, in which the youth lived with his parents as well as his siblings with their own families. In the petition filed on behalf of the family, HaMoked emphasized that the attacker was a single man who had used just a small room in his parents’ apartment. Therefore, HaMoked argued, it was neither reasonable nor proportionate to demolish (through sealing) the entire apartment – which would bring disaster to ten innocent people, including children. The military must revoke the demolition order, HaMoked maintained, or at least reduce its scope by sealing just the room the assailant had used. In the petition on behalf of the other occupants of the building, HaMoked noted that aside from harming the occupants of the targeted apartment, the demolition might also harm 16 other innocent people, among them also children. HaMoked requested a copy of the complete demolition plan, and leave to submit an engineer opinion on its behalf ahead of the hearing.
