setting the record straight:
House demolition is typically justified by the IDF on the basis of:
Deterrence, achieved by harming the relatives of those who carry out, or are suspected of involvement in carrying out, attacks[3]
Counter-terrorism, by destroying militant facilities such as bombs labs, headquarters, and offices
Legality, according to building and housing regulations
Forcing out an individual barricaded inside a house, which may be rigged with explosives, without risking soldiers' lives
Self-defence, by destroying possible hideouts and rocket propelled grenade/gun posts[8]
Combat engineering, clearing a path for tanks and heavy armoured personnel carriers
Human rights organisations' criticism
The United Nations (UN) and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross who oppose the house demolitions reject the IDF's claims, and document numerous instances where they argue the IDF's claims do not apply.[1] They accuse the Israeli government and IDF of other motives:
Collective punishment, the punishment of an innocent Palestinian "for an offence he or she has not personally committed."[1][9]
Theft of Palestinian land by annexation to build the Israeli West Bank barrier or to create, expand or otherwise benefit Israeli settlements.[1][10]
According to the United Nations, about 1,500 homes were demolished by the IDF just in the Rafah area in the period 2000-2004.[11]
In 2004, Human Rights Watch published the report 'Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip'.[12][13] The report documented what it described as a "pattern of illegal demolitions" by the IDF in Rafah, a refugee camp and city at the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt where
sixteen thousand people lost their homes after the Israeli government approved a plan to expand the de facto "buffer zone" in May 2004.[13][14] The IDF’s main stated rationales for the demolitions were; responding to and preventing attacks on its forces and the suppression of weapons smuggling through tunnels from Egypt[15]
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The al-Rajabi home was rebuilt a second time last year after Israeli bulldozers destroyed the first home in 2008. With assistance from local nongovernmental organizations, including the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD), the home had been reconstructed as the family worked with an attorney to obtain legal building permits — to no avail.
“The Jerusalem municipality demolished six houses in East Jerusalem claiming they were built illegally, ignoring the fact that the municipality makes it impossible for Palestinians to obtain permits in order to build legally,”
We sympathise just as much with those innocent Jewish victims of the Nazis, as much as we do with the Palestinian victims of Zionism 