truthout: Israel Is Demolishing Homes in the West Bank to Force Palestinians to Leave

[Dennis Donovan]

truthout - Israel Is Demolishing Homes in the West Bank to Force Palestinians to Leave

Since 2023, home demolitions have displaced 7,392 Palestinians.

By Qassam Muaddi , Mondoweiss
Published May 4, 2025



t was 5 in the morning, and my wife and children were still sleeping when I saw three bulldozers coming from a distance on the village’s main road,” said Raed Srour, 45. “When they approached, I could see that they were accompanied by several military jeeps, and I understood that it was an occupation demolition mission on its way to the village. I wondered where they might be headed. It didn’t occur to me that they were coming for my house.”

A father of four, Raed Srour didn’t know that on Monday morning, he and his family had just spent their last night in their home in the village of Ni’lin, west of Ramallah. Srour’s family had been living in that house for seven years after almost ten years of hard work, building it stone by stone.

Elsewhere in the West Bank on that same day, Israeli forces moved to demolish several more Palestinian homes: in Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, a seven-floor residential building was demolished, and in Anata, north of Jerusalem, 14 Palestinian properties received demolition orders. Later in the week, Israeli forces demolished a three-floor residential building in the village of Za’tara east of Bethlehem, in addition to several water wells in Tarqumia, west of Hebron.

The demolition of Palestinian homes is the other side of the coin of Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land for settlement expansion. Since 2023, home demolitions have displaced 7,392 Palestinians.

This demolition blitz has had the effect of clearing vast swathes of the West Bank of Palestinian physical presence, while limiting the urban expansion of Palestinians in their existing places of residence. In the past month alone, Israeli forces demolished 58 Palestinian properties — and 5,900 properties since October 7, 2023.

/snip

[Lonestarblue]

1. Israel has been doing this for decades, but now they've stepped up the pace.

Netanyahu sees the opportunity to be rid of Palestinians completely. Gaza is now mostly decimated and people are living in tents, and even refugee camps are still being bombed. Those who aren’t killed through bombing are being starved to death. Netanyahu knows that Trump will support anything he does to Palestinians, and the rest of the world seems to no longer care about them either.

[Eko]

2. And they are our ally?