Israel demolishes home of Palestinian assailant in West Bank

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces demolished the home of a Palestinian man who carried out a fatal shooting in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, amid heightened tensions in the region over Israeli government measures and ongoing violence .

The army said the demolition was carried out after an Israeli court rejected appeals to save the house. The house, in the troubled West Bank city of Hebron, was demolished in a controlled explosion. First there was lightning, then gray clouds came out of the apartment early in the morning.

Israel says the demolitions are meant to deter future attacks, but critics say they constitute collective punishment against the families of the attackers and only heighten tensions with the Palestinians.

In last year’s attack, Muhammed Kamel al-Jabari fired at the entrance to an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, killing an Israeli and injuring several civilians before being shot dead by a security guard.

The house was demolished after months of violence in the area. Israel carries out raids to detain people almost every night in the West Bank, a campaign sparked by a series of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last spring. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to a leading Israeli rights group.

Nearly 50 Palestinians have been killed in the territories so far this year, a sign that fighting has intensified in recent weeks with the rise to power of Israel’s new far-right government. The executive has promised a strong hand against the Palestinians and has already taken steps to promote settlement construction in the West Bank.

Israel says most of the dead were militants. But young people protesting the incursions and others not involved in the clashes also died.

Some 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year, and seven others were killed in an attack outside an East Jerusalem synagogue last month.

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six Day War. The Palestinians claim these territories to form an independent state.