Witness - the dark fate of Palestinian families whose homes were demolished by the occupation

Ramallah -

Despite the great damage to his apartment after the occupation bombed his martyr brother's house adjacent to it, the Palestinian Yasser Al-Ja'bari and his family find no other option but to stay in it as it is, as did his three other brothers whose homes were damaged to varying degrees.

A few days ago, the Israeli occupation forces implemented their decision to demolish the home of the martyr Muhammad al-Ja’bari, who carried out the shooting attack near the “Kiryat Arba” settlement, which was established on the lands of the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, last October, in which a settler was killed and 5 others were injured.

"They did not succeed in demolishing the martyr's apartment completely from the first time, so they blew it up, causing damage to all the apartments of the building and the homes of the neighbors," Yasser Al-Ja'bari told Al-Jazeera Net.

The biggest damage befell Yasser Al-Aqrab's apartment, as the walls cracked and the windows cracked and shattered from the force of the explosion, which also made a hole in the kitchen ceiling.

initiatives but!

Despite the necessary need to restore it, Al-Ja'bari and his family find no other option but to continue living in it, while the martyr's wife and their two children moved to her father's house after they became homeless, as a temporary solution so that the family could provide an alternative for them.

"We received many initiatives from the people of the city to help us financially to rebuild the martyr's house, but the occupation's decision to demolish was accompanied by a ban on building in the same place," says Yasser Al-Ja'bari.

The demolition left great psychological effects on the family, especially the two martyred children, as they had to vacate their house since the first day of the Israeli court's decision to demolish it, while they had not completed one year of living in it.

And the initiatives to provide support for rebuilding the house, according to Al-Jabari, did not come from official Palestinian bodies, but rather from "good people", who are often well-off from merchants and local personalities.

The condition of the family of the martyr al-Ja’bari in Hebron is like that of hundreds of Palestinian families whose homes were demolished by the occupation in recent years, and others are still awaiting the implementation of demolition decisions, and were forced to find alternative housing without official interventions to help them, or public community initiatives in light of the occupation’s pursuit of these initiatives under the pretext of supporting “terrorism.” ".

Also among them is the family of the young prisoner, Yunis Hailan, from the Qalqilya governorate in the northern West Bank, whom the occupation authorities accuse of carrying out the stabbing and killing of a settler last October.

On January 11, the family was informed of the occupation's final decision to demolish the house, and as a result they emptied it completely and moved to live in a rented house without official support.

244 Palestinians have been displaced since the beginning of the year

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel has demolished 171 Palestinian facilities, including residential homes that housed 244 Palestinians, since the beginning of this year.

According to the Palestine Information Center "Maata", the number of homes demolished by the occupation since the beginning of the year reached 51, including 11 in Jericho and the same in Hebron, 15 in occupied Jerusalem, 3 in Bethlehem, 3 in Jenin, 7 in Nablus, and one house in Salfit.

These numbers are added to the 353 residential buildings that were demolished during the year 2022, and the families who used to live in them were also displaced.

One of the five Jaradat family homes demolished by the occupation last year near Jenin (Al-Jazeera)

5 single family homes

The house of the prisoner Omar Jaradat, from the town of Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin, in the northern West Bank. One of these houses was demolished in May 2022.

Israel accuses Jaradat of carrying out a commando operation in which a settler was killed and others injured near the "Homesh" settlement, which was built on Palestinian lands in the northern West Bank at the end of 2021.

In the case of the Jaradat family, the matter did not stop at the demolition of only one house, as the occupation gradually demolished 5 of the family’s homes, including two belonging to Muhammad Jaradat, the prisoner’s uncle, whom the occupation accuses of participating in the operation, and a third house for a relative of theirs, along with the house of the prisoner’s father also after The occupation accused his brother "Ghaith" of participating in the operation as well.

Assad Allah Jaradat, the brother of the prisoner Omar, says that the families have been displaced from their homes several times, after the occupation demolished the houses in separate periods.

According to the prisoner's brother, in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, the relatives opened their homes to the homeless families, which helped relieve them.

"We found refuge among our relatives, and we did not have to rent a house or leave the area we live in, which mitigated our great loss," he added.

As in the case of Al-Jabri, the Jaradat family tried to rebuild their homes in the same place, but they were surprised by a decision that prevented them from doing so or benefiting from the demolition site for any purpose until an indefinite period.

The Jaradat family is now seeking to sell a piece of land it owns to rebuild a new house to live in in another place, in light of the obstruction of community efforts to rebuild its demolished homes, and the fear of persecution by the occupation under the pretext of supporting "terrorists".

Assad Allah Jaradat recalls the years of the second intifada, and how community initiatives and official aid provided by the Ministry of Public Works and the Palestinian factions helped families whose homes were demolished.

He said, "5 houses were demolished in our area itself, all of which were rebuilt with aid collected from the people and political parties and organized by the official authorities."

The alternative: living in caves

Despite the fear of the societal incubator and the decline in official and factional support, as Jaradat said, the situation of the owners of demolished houses in the areas close to the cities (the “A” areas controlled by the authority according to the Oslo classification) is better than those in the remote areas, where the occupation forces the residents to force them to leave About it, as in the case of the Jordan Valley and Masafer Yatta.

Muhammad Ayoub Abu Sabha, from the "Al-Fakhit" community in Masafer Yatta, in the south of the West Bank, lives with his family now in a cave after his home was demolished 3 times over the past year.

In January 2022, the occupation bulldozers demolished his house, consisting of a large room built of bricks and roofed with tin, so he moved to live temporarily in a tent provided to him by the Palestinian Authority. A month later, an international European institution rebuilt his house as it was, so the occupation re-demolished it last May. .

After the second demolition, the family returned to live in a tent, and began rebuilding his house with a tin roof with the support of an international institution. However, the occupation did not give him much time, so he demolished the house before he could inhabit it, and also confiscated the tent.

In that area, the occupation completely prohibits construction under the pretext that it is located within areas classified as "C" (subject to full Israeli control), which makes the people move to live in caves that used to house livestock and animals in winter, says the head of the Musafir local council, Nidal Younis, to Al Jazeera Net .

According to Younis, dozens of families have taken refuge in the caves without the necessities for a human life, but for them it is their only option to remain steadfast on their land.

According to Younes, this prosecution affected the assistance provided to families after the demolition of their homes, and led to a decline compared to previous years.

"The aid was bigger and faster, but in recent years it has become limited and simple," he said.