Terrorist's home will not be demolished
In response to petition by father of Mercaz Harav shooter, High Court orders Homefront Command to freeze demolition of family home
The Israeli High Court ruled Tuesday evening to freeze demolition on the home of terrorist Alaa Abu Dhaim, who murdered eight unarmed students and injured ten others, in an attack at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in March.
The decree, announced by High Court Judge Salim Jubran, came in response to a petition by the terrorist’s father, Hisam Abu Dhaim, who claimed that a Homefront Command order to demolish the second and third stories of the four-story family residence would make the entire residence uninhabitable for the rest of the family.
In early August, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered to launch proceedings aimed at razing the Dhaim family home, pursuant to the son's terrorist actions.
Dhaim was informed of the demolition plans in mid-August by Homefront Command Chief Major-General Yair Golan. The terrorist’s family’s appeal to the IDF was rejected, so they then petitioned the Supreme Court on the matter.
Hisam Dhaim, assisted by his attorney Andre Rosental and an Israeli civil liberties group, petitioned the court to grant a freeze on the partial demolition of the Dhaim family home and to grant him access to the engineering plans of the demolition in order to prove that destroying the second and third floors of the residence (where Alaa Abu Dhaim had lived) was not feasible without damaging the entire residence.
The Dhaims claimed that the government intended to punish the entire family unfairly for the son’s actions.
The father further contended that the son's actions did not constitute terrorism. To this end, Dhaim requested from the court that Golan provide proof of his son’s affiliation with an illegal organization.
He asserted that he did not know of his son’s connection to any such organization and emphasized that his son cannot be labeled as a terrorist merely because he was an Arab and his victims were Jewish Yeshiva students.
The legal team, noting that horrible attacks have also been undertaken by Jews, suggests that the Alaa Abu Dhaim might merely have lost his mind and become violent and, thus, should not be subject to the posthumous punishments associated with terrorists.
Finally, Dhaim railed against the entire concept of house demolitions and demanded to see the protocols from two military committees convened in 2005. According to Dhaim’s legal team, the first committee recommended against razing terrorists’ homes in the West Bank and the second committee ruled that military demolitions did not serve as a deterrent to terrorists at all.
While the full protocols were not published, it is true that, pursuant to the committee meeting, Former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz decided to stop house demolitions during his tenure.
