Israel Demolishes Family Home Of Palestinian Teen Who Killed Israeli
Image by getty images
KAUBER, West Bank (Reuters) – The Israeli military on Tuesday demolished the family home of a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank who killed an Israeli in a Jewish settlement a month ago and was shot dead in the attack.
Footage distributed by the military showed an armored bulldozer tearing into the one-story structure in the village of Kauber, north of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
Mohammed Tareq Ibraham Dar Youssef, 17, broke into the settlement of Adam on July 26, and stabbed three people, killing Yotam Ovadia, 31. One of those wounded in the assault fatally shot the Palestinian, the military said.
Dar Youssef’s uncle, Khaled Abu Ayyoush, said the youth’s parents, two brothers and two sisters had lived in the house razed in the night-time operation. The family, he said, had known nothing of his intention to carry out an attack.
“Why are they at fault? Israel’s continued policy of collective punishment is merciless,” Abu Ayyoush said.
Israel’s Supreme Court has upheld the demolition policy, which Israeli officials have termed both punitive and a deterrence to potential attackers.
In a statement, the military said dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks, firebombs and pipe bombs at troops who deployed in the village and that they responded with “riot dispersal means”. It said none of the soldiers was hurt. There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian injuries.
“We entered tonight to close a circle and we destroyed the terrorist’s home,” Lieutenant-Colonel Liron Appleman, a battalion commander, said at the scene in the video clip provided by the military.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
