Israeli military demolishes home of man killed after settlement attack

Israeli forces demolished the home of a Palestinian man who was shot dead at the scene after a gun attack last year on a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The demolition was carried out early on Thursday after an Israeli court rejected appeals to spare the residence of Mohammad Kamal Jabari, the military said.

His flat, in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, was demolished in a controlled explosion.

Dozens of families living in the building were made to wait outside for hours in cold weather while the demolition was carried out, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israel says home demolitions are meant to deter future attackers, but critics say they amount to collective punishment against the families of assailants and only exacerbate tensions with Palestinians.

Mr Jabari opened fire at the entrance to an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on October 29, killing an Israeli man and wounding several civilians before a security guard shot him dead.

The demolition of his home comes during an escalation in Palestinian-Israeli tensions that has been affecting the region for months.

Israel has conducted near-nightly arrest raids in the West Bank after a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis last spring.

Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to a leading Israeli rights group.

Israel says most of those killed were militants. But youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Nearly 50 Palestinians have been killed in those areas this year, a sign that the conflict has intensified in recent weeks after Israel’s new, far-right government assumed power.

It has promised to take a tough line against the Palestinians, and has already taken steps to accelerate West Bank settlement building.

About 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis last year and another seven people 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 Arab-Israeli war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.

With reporting from Associated Press

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