Human rights groups condemn collective punishment against Palestinians

The walls of the Hroub family home are largely gone, knocked out by the Israeli army's heavy machinery. Piles of concrete and tile are all that remain of the now-uninhabitable dwelling.

Israeli soldiers came at night, earlier this year, to demolish the house, in accordance with a controversial policy to deter future attacks by Palestinians.

The two-storey home in the village of Deir Samat, near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, belongs to the mother of Mohammed al-Hroub.

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Israeli authorities say Hroub carried out a November 2015 shooting attack at a road junction near the West Bank settlement of Gush Etzion, killing two people an 18-year-old American and a 49-year-old Israeli. Nine others were injured in the shooting, which came during a period of attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israelis.

Mohammed's bedroom isnear the back of the first floor, across the hall from the kitchen where the cupboards were smashed and the appliances overturned.

His father, Abdulbaset al-Hroub, said his son carried out the attack because he had, for years, faced the "humiliation of the occupation." Mohammed, he said, had been forced by Israel's army to strip naked at checkpoints, and had been prevented from praying at an important Muslim holy site in Jerusalem.

"These policies create a sense of revolution and resistance among the people down here," he told CBC News, after attending a recent court appearance for his son, who faces murder charges.

Most of the attacks over the last seven months have been knifings or car rammings, which have left 29 Israelis and four non-Israelis dead.

Palestinian medical authorities say more than 200 Palestinians have died in the same period. Israeli officials say most of them had carried out, or were suspected of taking part in, attacks.

Punitive policy

Israel has stepped up its punitive policy of demolishing the homes belonging to the families of Palestinian attackers.

On Tuesday, Israeli security forces razed the house of another Palestinian man Israel says is linked to the militant group Hamas. The alleged attacker, Zaid Ziyad, is on trial for the deaths of two Israeli settlers who were shot while driving in October 2015.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem reports that nearly two dozen dwellings belonging to the family members of alleged assailants have been demolished or sealed off since the wave of attacks began last fall. B'Tselem found that 149 people, including 65 children, have been made homeless.

Israel stopped punitive home demolitions in 2005, after the country's military determined that the practice did more harm than good. But the policy was reinstated three years later and is now defended by Israel's right-wing government.

"Home demolitions are not something that we want to do, but we are trying to save innocent people's lives and stop the terror," Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told the Washington Post. "We believe in human rights, but in every democracy you have to find a balance between those freedoms and the biggest freedom, which is staying alive."

Practice denounced

Several human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem have denounced the practice, saying it amounts to the collective punishment of Palestinians.

"The families whose homes have been demolished have nothing to do with these attacks," B'Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli told CBC News. "We're talking about a deliberate policy of harming innocent people in order to supposedly deter others."

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The practice has also been criticized as it only applies to Palestinians. Family homes of Jewish Israelis who have attacked and killed Palestinians remain untouched.

Walking through the rubble of his house in the West Bank, Abdulbaset al-Hroub said, "There are a lot of memories here," pointing to where he would sit down with his sons and daughters for dinner. The wooden table is smashed, along with the dining room walls.

"This is the Israel policy of punishing everyone, to try to terrify us so we run away from this land. We will never do that," he said. "Our resistance is for our freedom and a normal life here."