Beit Amra, Palestinian Territories // The Israeli army on Saturday razed the family home of a Palestinian teenager accused in the fatal stabbing of a Jewish woman at her home in a West Bank settlement.
The demolition took place before dawn, according to the Palestinian news agency Maan, with bulldozers flattening the entire building in the West Bank village of Beit Amra as family members watched.
The murder in January of Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old nurse and mother of six, provoked fierce reaction among Israelis and prompted a personal vow from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the assailant’s house would be razed.
Israeli forces arrested 15-year-old Murad Ideis in a raid on his family home days after the attack.
He was convicted by a military court in May, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
His family appealed against the demolition order, arguing that they had no involvement in the attack, but it was upheld by the Israeli high court earlier this month, Haaretz reported. The judges said that while there was no evidence that the family was aware of Murad's actions, they had "closed their eyes" to what was happening.
Israel regularly demolishes the homes of alleged attackers in what it describes as a deterrent. Rights groups say it amounts to collective punishment.
The army said it had also made preparations to demolish of the homes of two Palestinians accused of shooting and killing four Israelis at a Tel Aviv nightspot on Wednesday in the deadliest attack in a months-long wave of violence.
Cousins Khaled Mohammad Makhamrah, 22, Mohammad Ahmad Makhamrah, 21, are both from the town of Yatta, about one kilometre east of Beit Amra.
Wednesday’s attack, which also wounded five bystanders, prompted a range of measures from Israel, including the suspension 83,000 entry permits issued for Ramadan and barring entry for all Palestinians from the occupied West Bank until midnight on Sunday. Israeli forces also imposed a blockade on Yatta and defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said the bodies of alleged Palestinian attackers would not be returned to their families for burial.
An escalation in violence since October has killed at least 207 Palestinians, 32 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese.
Israeli authorities say that most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
Others were killed in clashes with security forces or by Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip.
* Agence France-Presse