Center for the Defence of the Individual - The unbearable lightness of the punitive demolition policy: in a laconic judgment, as if by routine, the HCJ approves the punitive demolition of another home
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
21.08.2016

The unbearable lightness of the punitive demolition policy: in a laconic judgment, as if by routine, the HCJ approves the punitive demolition of another home

On August 21, 2016, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) approved the planned punitive demolition of a house in Dura, Hebron District, in which had lived a suspect in a shooting attack against Israelis in the South Hebron Hills on July 1, 2016. The demolition would leave the man’s wife and two small daughters – one eleven months old, the other two and a half years old – without a home, for no wrong they had done. This is the 19th punitive demolition the HCJ has approved since the start of 2016.

The justices held that “this petition does not raise any particular difficulty or unique circumstances to justify straying from the binding general precedent in the matter of house demolitions”. The HCJ approves as a matter of routine the punitive demolition orders the state issues for the homes of Palestinians; special circumstances are required in order to deviate from the precedent, based on which the court repeatedly, indefatigable, upholds Israel’s wrongful policy of punitive demolition, contrary to international law.

Moreover, the justices did not even bother this time to grant the family sufficient time to get organized, and did not extend the validity of the temporary order issued in the petition, which thus expired once the judgment was issued.

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