Jerusalem // Israeli forces on Monday destroyed the East Jerusalem homes of two Palestinians who killed four Israelis on one of the deadliest days in the recent surge in violence.
In the neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, the home of Alaa Abu Jamal was filled with concrete and sealed off.
Abu Jamal had on October 13 rammed his car into people at a Jerusalem bus stop and jumped out with a knife, stabbing a rabbi to death before being shot dead.
He was a cousin of two Palestinians who in November stormed a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighbourhood with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing five Jewish worshippers and a policeman before being shot dead.
In another part of Jabel Mukaber, Israeli forces used jackhammers to destroy the walls of Bahaa Allyan’s home, the middle floor of a three-storey building.
Allyan and another Palestinian, Bilal Ghanem, had on October 13 shot and stabbed passengers on a bus in Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and a US-Israeli dual national.
Allyan was shot dead while Ghanem was arrested.
Hundreds of Israeli police and soldiers were on site for the home destructions, which took place without incident after residents were cleared from the area.
“I don’t have any other place to live,” Allyan’s father Mohammed said.
“The army just said ‘we are going to destroy the house, get out’ – this measure punishes a father, a mother, a brother, a sister and [four] children” who were living in the house, he said.
At least 142 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis since October 1, according to the Palestian news agency Maan. Israeli forces claim that many of those killed were attempting to carry out attacks but this has been disputed by Palestinians and rights groups.
In the same period, 22 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean have been killed in a wave of Palestinian attacks including stabbings, car rammings and gunfire targeting security forces and civilians.
In the latest violence, two Israeli soldiers, one a woman, were wounded on Sunday in separate shootings in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, the army said.
The young woman was seriously wounded when an unidentified gunman fired at her and she was taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek hospital, the army said.
The shooting happened near a disputed holy site in the heart of Hebron’s Old City, which is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs.
Three hours later, another gunman opened fire on an army patrol in southern Hebron, slightly wounding a soldier, the army said, adding that the unknown assailant fled after the attack.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November vowed to expedite punitive house demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which he said were “one of the most efficient tools” in discouraging Palestinian attacks.
The controversial practice is widely used in the West Bank and resumed in East Jerusalem in November after a five-year hiatus.
According to the United Nations, 19 homes of families and neighbours of Palestinian attackers were destroyed by Israel last year.
* Agence France-Presse
