OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 17 August — Israel’s Supreme Court yesterday gave a go-ahead to the army to confiscate Palestinian agricultural land as troops blew up homes of two Palestinians in an overnight operation.
The court rejected a petition by a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip against an Israeli Army decision to confiscate agricultural land owned by him.The army wanted to use the land to build a new road to the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, south of Gaza City.
Nine other Palestinians whose land is also liable to be confiscated added their names to the petition. The court said the army’s decision was based on “security needs” in which it could not intervene.
In an operation in the village of R’ai near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, Israel troops destroyed the family homes of two Palestinians they hold responsible for the killings of at least 17 Israelis.
In a statement, the Israeli Army said soldiers blew up the home of Iyad Sawalha in the village because of his hand in planning a bus bombing in June. Residents of R’ai said 12 people were rendered homeless after troops flattened the two-story house. Sawalha was in hiding elsewhere.
Troops also razed the house of Morad Mohammed Abu Asal in Anabta, also near Tulkarm.
Israel recently adopted a policy of blowing up the family homes of Palestinians it accuses of involvement in attacks.
Human rights organizations and Palestinians condemn the policy as collective punishment violating international law.
Troops arrested five Palestinians south of the West Bank city of Jenin overnight, four of them on Israel’s “most-wanted” list. The army captured Sudqi Al-Zaro, a local leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in a pre-dawn operation in the city.
Demolitions resumed a day after Israeli tank fire killed a five-year-old Palestinian boy at the edge of Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
As the Israeli operation continued Palestinians attempted to revive stalled talks on a common strategy against Israel.
Hamas vowed to continue inter-factional discussions on a united Palestinian leadership despite a Palestinian official’s announcement that the talks had failed.
Meanwhile, Israeli daily Maariv quoting a senior military official reported yesterday the army has decided to continue its controversial practice of using civilians in arrests of wanted Palestinian militants and house-to-house searches.
The practice, known in the army as “neighbor procedure”, involves soldiers surrounding a house in which a wanted militant is hiding. They call on him to surrender through loudspeakers and when he refuses, they tell a neighbor to knock on the door and persuade him to come out.
A 19-year-old Palestinian civilian was killed Wednesday night north of Nablus when soldiers ordered him to go from door to door in a building they were surrounding, and tell residents to leave.
Most residents left, but when Nidal Abu Muhsein knocked on one door, he was hit by a hail of bullets, apparently fired from inside.
The youth’s death sparked a fierce debate in Israel, prompting the army to discuss stopping the use of the “neighbor procedure”.
The Israeli Haaretz daily yesterday quoted a “senior police officer” as saying the practice has been used “hundreds of times to reach wanted men and to comb houses for fear of booby traps”.
“In recent months it has been used very often during the fighting,” the official said.
The practice, compared by some to using human shields, continued despite an Israeli Army promise to the Israeli Supreme Court last May, following a petition by human rights groups.
