Israel demolished 538 Palestinian homes and facilities across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem in 2018, leaving 1,300 Palestinians, including 225 children, homeless, according to a year-end report by the Abdullah Al-Hurani Centre, an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The report stressed that these demolitions were carried out in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other international norms. It charged that Israel "continues its policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem," pointing out that, in addition to the demolitions, Israel issued 460 "stop-building orders" during the same period.
Israel's military-controlled Civil Administration for the West Bank issued an order to demolish each of the targeted buildings less than 30 days before demolition was carried out—a move the report sees as aiming to cut short the possibility of appealing such orders.
The report also documented the demolition or closure of 12 schools and kindergartens built by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. (Middle East Monitor, Dec. 29)
Photo via Middle East Monitor
