Urgent Need
Human Rights Watch found the Israeli Defense Forces made 16,000 people homeless in Gaza since September 2000, regardless of whether their homes posed a genuine military threat (see Oct 2004 report, Raising Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip). In observations confirmed by B'Tselem (an Israeli human rights organization) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law. In most of the cases Human Rights Watch found the destruction was carried out in the absence of military necessity.
Although Israel moved its settlements out of Gaza in August 2005, the Israeli army continues collective punishment against crowded Gaza and West Bank neighborhoods. Here is the weekly report on Israeli Human Rights Violations prepared by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Why Rebuild
“Tell them there is hope. Let people know you can help stop this violence. You can help bring Israel back to the negotiation table.” Those are the words of Dr. Eyad El–Sarraj, a strong opponent of any kind of violence. He chairs the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and is our distinguished rebuilding partner in Gaza.
We rebuild demolished homes to help families who have lost everything, put unemployed construction workers back to work, and enable Israeli and Palestinian volunteers in service. We rebuild as a tangible and immediate way to acknowledge that Palestinian families have the same right to live in a home on the land they own, just like everyone else.
Israel's House Demolition Policy
According to Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes is a key to maintaining the Occupation and foreclosing a just peace between the two peoples. Overall, it purposefully confines Palestinians to small islands of the Occupied Territories and East Jerusalem, leaving most of the territory free for Israeli settlement and annexation. But the demolition of a family's home also represents a great human tragedy, and the trauma and hatred this policy generates deliberately undermines attempts at achieving peace and reconciliation.
House demolitions have become a hallmark of Occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Whether the reasons are to "Judaize" the landscape, clear areas of Palestinian population, alter demographic realities or collectively punish a population, the bulldozer has become as ubiquitous an element of Israeli control as the tank and the rifle. Prior to the invasion of March 2002, Israel had demolished 9400 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories since 1967. After March 2002, some 2000 more homes have been added to the list.
The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes throughout the Occupied Territories, together with the destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure – including health records, records of citizenship and ownership of land — goes far beyond mere retaliation for terrorist attacks. It is an attack on an entire people, an attempt to make the Palestinians submit to a mini–state under Israeli control.
Demolition Statistics
| Year(s) | Number of Palestinian Homes Demolished by Israel | Description of demolition policy |
| 1967 | approx. 2000 | At least 2000 houses were demolished following the war in 1967, including four entire villages in the Latrun area (now known as "Canada Park") and the Mughrabi Quarter in front of the Western Wall. |
| 1971 | 2000 | In 1971, Ariel Sharon, then Commander of the Southern Command, cleared 2000 houses in the Gazan refugee camps to facilitate military control. |
| 1987–93 First Intifada | 2000 | At least 2000 houses were destroyed in the course of putting down the first Intifada in the late 1980s and early '90s. |
| 1993-2001 during the Peace Process | 1700 | Almost 1700 more "illegal" Palestinian homes were demolished by court order during the course of the peace process. These homes were located too close to expanding settlement colonies. |
| 2001 -2005 | 4000 | Since the start of the second Intifada in September, 2000, yet another 1700 homes have been destroyed by heavy artillery and missiles, including hundreds in attacks on Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and other cities. Thousands of other homes were left uninhabitable. Court ordered demolition in the Jerusalem area and in the West Bank is also on the rise. |
| Total | 11,700 | No home–owners insurance; families invest their life savings in building their homes... after demolition, all is lost. |
(Sources: B'tselem; LAW, Jerusalem Municipality. World Bank Damage Assessment)
Personal Stories
The impact of Israel's house demolition policy is best weighed through first person accounts of those who have lost their homes. In addition, our building projects provide a lens into the workings of the Occupation itself. The vagaries and corruption of a system without fair rule of law mean that nothing is certain or schedulable from day to day. We learned that each project must include a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan C, just in case. We do our best to record milestones, both positive and negative, to help the reader understand the challenges our partners face.
Constructive Resistance
Constructive resistance is non-violent civil disobedience, in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It is resistance to unjust local laws and acts of government in the name of higher laws of universal justice and morality. Just as Martin Luther King went to jail to protest the formal and informal racial practices in Birmingham, Alabama, we rebuild demolished Palestinian homes to demonstrate our opposition to the policies of Occupation.
