Description

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- The family of slain Palestinian attacker Muhannad al-Halabi signed the contract for a new home on Tuesday after a campaign was able to raise funds to replace their previous one, which was lost to a punitive demolition carried out earlier this year.

The 360-square-meter home, which is still under construction, lies in the village of Abu Qash, where their former home was situated, and will cost them a total of 124,000 JD ($175,000) when it is complete.

Halabi's family expressed their deep appreciation and gratitude to everyone who participated in the campaign to fund their new home.
Halabi, 19, was shot dead by Israeli forces on Oct. 3 last year after he killed two Israelis and injured two more in Jerusalem's Old City, in the first stabbing attack to take place in a wave of unrest that afterward swept the occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli forces demolished his family’s home in the village of Surda north of Ramallah on Jan. 9 and confiscated their land. The campaign to fund a new home quickly gained popular support from Palestinians.

Israeli forces have long carried out home demolitions as punishment for alleged Palestinian attacks against Israelis, even where the suspect was killed or detained following the attack.

The practice had been decried by numerous rights groups as collective punishment that mainly targets the accused's relatives.

Israeli rights organization B'Tselem has slammed the house demolitions as a "punitive measure against the Palestinian population," and argued that "the deterrent effect of house demolitions has never been proven."

This version corrects that the house will cost 124,000 JD ($175,000) when complete and not 164,000 JD ($231,310).