Israel demolishes home of Palestinian in hit-and-run attack

Israeli forces have demolished the east Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who killed two pedestrians and have started to erect barriers at the entrance to Jerusalem Arab neighbourhoods as part of a wider drive to stem a wave of attacks against Jews in the capital.

Hours after four worshippers and a police officer were killed in an attack by two Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem on a synagogue in the ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Har Nof, army combat engineers blew up the home of Abed a-Rahman a-Shaludi, who last month plowed his car into a crowd of people waiting at a Jerusalem light rail stop, killing a three-month-old baby and a woman from Ecuador.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, vowing that Israel would win the "battle for Jerusalem" and "settle the score with every terrorist", said that home demolitions were just one measure being adopted to end the violence.

“You need a means of deterrence against the next suicide attacker,” he explained. “When he knows that his house, the house in which his family lives, will be demolished, this will have an impact.”

Whole house homeless

The five-storey building, in the Silwan neighbourhood, adjacent to Jerusalem’s old city, housed about 50 people and was blown up after residents were evacuated.

The policy of punitive house demolitions was largely abandoned after 2005 but has now been reintroduced.

Five other buildings, the homes of Palestinians who carried out recent fatal attacks against Israelis, have also been served with demolition orders and it is likely that they will be destroyed in the coming days.

Israeli security officials are divided over whether or not demolishing homes works as a deterrence. Human rights groups have criticised the measure as a form of collective punishment and note that it is never used against Jews convicted of fatal attacks against Palestinians.

Worshippers, including many who were injured in Tuesday morning’s attack, returned yesterday to the synagogue where the attack took place. Motti Uderberg, the synagogue caretaker, said the congregation remain undeterred. “We don’t run the world. We keep having full faith and keep praying to the Creator. The murderers won’t deter us.”

Druze funeral

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews travelled to the Druze village of Yanuch in the north of Israel yesterday to attend the funeral of the police officer who died of his wounds after rushing to the synagogue to engage the two Palestinian assailants.

Leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis declared the Druze officer a Righteous Among the Nations, declaring that his courageous act had saved the lives of many worshippers.

Although ethnic Arabs, the Druze community, in contrast to most Israeli Arabs, serves in the Israeli army and many are also career policemen.

Another measure being adopted in an effort to curb the violence is the erection of checkpoints at the entrance to some Jerusalem Arab neighbourhoods.

The move is a controversial one for a right-wing government as it could be interpreted as undermining the concept of Jerusalem as Israel's united capital. When Mr Netanyahu won the election in 1996, his main campaign slogan against Labour party candidate Shimon Peres, who was in the midst of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, was "Peres will divide Jerusalem".

Israel has also informed the families of the two Palestinians who carried out Tuesday’s attack that the bodies of the two men will not be returned for burial.

Despite the ongoing tension, Israel yesterday approved the construction of 78 new homes in two Jerusalem neighbourhoods over the 1967 green line border. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, criticised the new construction plans.

“These decisions are a continuation of the Israeli government’s policy to cause more tension, push towards further escalation and waste any chance to create an atmosphere for calm.”