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Scene. Credit: AlRay Published by IMEMC News
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Edited for IMEMC: Ali Salam

Israeli forces notified the family of two Palestinian prisoners, on Thursday, of an order to demolish their home in Kobar town, northwest of Ramallah city, the Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA) reported.

Widad Barghouthi, a media professor at Birzeit University, said that Israeli military forces broke into her family’s house in the village, held the occupants in one room and inspected their ID cards.

She added that soldiers wrecked havoc on the home in addition to taking photos and measurements in preparation for the planned punitive demolition.

Barghouthi, who teaches media studies, was rounded up by Israeli forces during a predawn invasion into the village on September 1, 2019, and held for 16 days before being released on September 17.

Barghouthi’s sons, Karmel and Qassam, are currently imprisoned in Israel.

Karmel, a 30-year-old father of two children who graduated from Birzeit University with a degree in accounting, was detained on September 1 at a military checkpoint while returning from a wedding party in Hebron. Qassam, 25, graduated from al-Quds University with a degree in journalism, was arrested a few days earlier during an Israeli incursion into his hometown.

They have been detained purportedly for being affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Israel resorts to punitively demolishing the family homes of Palestinian prisoners as a way to discourage any future attacks against Israelis, a policy that Israel does not apply to Israeli settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians.

Under the Fourth Geneva Conventions, “No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed.” This offence constitutes collective punishment, which is war crime under international law.

The policy was widely condemned by human rights groups as “a collective punishment” as well as “a war crime and crime against humanity”.

Image: Alray
Edited for IMEMC: Ali Salam