Israelis Reportedly Beat, Arrest Arabs Rebuilding Home

Israeli troops on Sunday beat and arrested members of a Palestinian family for working on rebuilding a house in the West Bank town of Hebron that has been demolished twice by the army, witnesses said.

Video footage of the incident showed Israeli soldiers hitting Yousef Atrash, his wife, son and daughter while dragging them to army jeeps before they were taken away.

Troops also confiscated construction equipment.

“The army and police approached us in a very provocative way. They beat my father, mother, sister and brother before arresting them. They also beat up my young brother and sister, and when I protested they said they would kill them,” said the Atrashs’ 13-year-old daughter Wala.

Peter Lerner, spokesman of Israel’s civil administration in the West Bank, said the family members were detained and force was used against them “because they resisted the confiscation of the construction tools with force.”

On Friday, Israeli rights activists, including a group of rabbis, joined Palestinians to help rebuild the Atrash house. The army maintains that the house had been built illegally and that the army’s past demolitions were in line with a High Court ruling.

Atrash now lives with his family in a tent near the demolished home.

Lerner had said on Friday that the home probably would be knocked down a third time because Atrash did not have a permit to build on the plot.

Atrash insisted that he had the right to build and vowed to continue reconstruction. He said he had documents showing title to 6.5 acres of land at the site.

He said the house was first demolished in 1988 and bulldozed again two weeks ago after he had gone into debt to rebuild it.

Israel has a policy of demolishing houses built without permits in areas of the West Bank that are still under its control, including part of Hebron.

Palestinians say the policy is applied disproportionately against Arabs and is carried out for political reasons.