The High Court of Justice approved the punitive demolition of three homes in the West Bank, including the home of the suspect’s grandparents

On December 14, 2022, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) approved the punitive demolition of three homes in Kafr Dan, Jenin district, following the September 13, 2022 shooting incident in which one Israeli soldier was killed and for which two Palestinian suspects were later arrested. The judgment rules jointly on the petitions filed by HaMoked on behalf of the two suspects’ families. The Court dismissed out of hand HaMoked’s principled arguments that demolition under Regulation 119 of the 1945 Defence (Emergency) Regulations constitutes collective punishment prohibited under international law; that this measure does not achieve deterrence but quite possibly the opposite; and that it causes disproportionate harm to innocent people.

The Court also rejected HaMoked’s argument on the case in hand, whereby this was not an “attack” against Israelis but rather a shootout between combatants and so there were no grounds for using Regulation 119. The Court ruled instead that according to the administrative evidence presented by the State, the shooting incident was not “armed conflict with IDF soldiers, distinct from a terrorist act” but rather “a planned shooting attack, prompted by nationalistic motives, in retaliation for the death of the two terrorists’ friend; the fact that the target of the attack were IDF soldiers does not nullify this being a terrorist attack, as it concerns those who arrived to commit an attack rather than wage battle…”.

The HCJ unanimously rejected the first petition, approving the demolition of both the unconstructed top floor and the first floor, in which the parents and sisters of the suspect live. The court also rejected the second petition; Justice Grosskopf in the minority, opined that the southern part of the structure should not be demolished, as it clearly constituted a separate unit in which only the suspect’s grandparents live, with a separate bathroom and kitchen. However, the two other justices on the panel, Kanfi-Steinitz and Sohlberg, approved the demolition of the entire single-story building, having adopted the State’s position that it constituted a single residential unit. Justice Sohlberg added that it was impossible to be lenient and “assume” for the family’s “benefit” that these were two units, as this would constitute an “artificial attempt” to limit the extent of the demolition and “might erode the deterrence objective underlying the use of Regulation 119…”.   

Thus the Court ousted from their only home 12 people who have been accused of no wrongdoing.