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Israel’s home demolitions after terrorist attacks, explained
(JTA) – Less than a hour after a terror attack in eastern Jerusalem on Friday killed three people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a succinct message: Destroy the Palestinian attacker’s home.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided to take immediate action to seal and demolish the home of the terrorist,” said the statement from Netanyahu’s office.
Home demolition orders have almost become a matter of course following Palestinian attacks. They don’t usually make headlines, nor do they tend to spark public outcry. For decades, Israel has used the tactic as a routine instrument of punishment, claiming that the effect of tearing down the homes of terrorists deters future attacks.
But critics question that claim, and say that home demolitions constitute collective punishment that violates international law. At a moment of deep political strife in Israel, the home demolition practice, like many others related to security, generates little political opposition. And while the Israeli Supreme Court, whose power Israel’s right-wing government hopes to limit, can delay home demolitions, it almost always ultimately permits them to go forward.
Here’s how the practice of Israeli home demolition began, how it’s viewed in Israel and abroad, and how it may be changing under Israel’s new government.
Why does Israel destroy the homes of terrorists?
Israel began demolishing homes of Palestinian attackers after it captured the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, along with other territories, in the 1967 Six Day War. Since then, according to a 2019 assessment by the Israel Democracy Institute, Israel has demolished some 2,000 homes due to terrorism. The demolitions have taken place in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, not within Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Israel claims that demolishing the homes of terrorists acts as a deterrent, a rationale cited last month in a bill introduced by lawmaker Eliahu Revivo, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party who also wants to deter attacks by deporting the families of terrorists.
“The national security establishment and the Israeli army have conducted research over the years into dozens of suicide attackers, and it emerged that the one deterrent for suicide attackers is what the consequences for their families will be after the attack,” the text of the bill said.
Home demolitions were largely suspended in 2005 after the Israel Defense Forces found that the practice had no discernible deterrent effect. The demolitions were sporadically reinstituted a few years later and fully brought back by Netanyahu in November 2014 during a wave of Palestinian attacks.
A 2010 research paper by political scientists at Northwestern University and Hebrew University suggested that home demolition works as a deterrent. The authors of the study based their findings on an examination of home demolitions in the five years prior to the army’s 2005 suspension, a period that coincided with the second intifada.
“We show that punitive house demolitions (those targeting Palestinian suicide terrorists and terror operatives) cause an immediate, significant decrease in the number of suicide attacks,” the paper said. “The effect dissipates over time and by geographic distance.”
This year, Netanyahu’s new government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, has indicated it will accelerate and expand the demolition of the homes of terrorists. It recently ordered the closing-off of an apartment belonging to the family of a 13-year-old who shot and wounded two Israelis near Jerusalem’s Old City. The move was unusual because Israel had previously reserved home demolition for attackers who killed people.
Does Israel demolish the homes of Jewish terrorists?
No. The Palestinian family of a boy murdered by a Jewish terrorist sued to have his killer’s home destroyed. The High Court in 2017 rejected the lawsuit, saying too much time had passed since the 2014 murder. The government argued that deterrence was not necessary in the case of Jewish terrorism, because, in the words of Judge Neal Hendel, Jewish terrorists are “a minority of a minority of a minority.” The Israeli government counted a total of 16 Jewish attacks of terrorism in 2015, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli Arab politicians, including Knesset member Ahmed Tibi, had called on the government to demolish the Jewish terrorist’s house as a matter of fair treatment.
Is demolishing terrorists’ homes legal?
Yes, according to Israel. No, according to experts in international law.
Israel bases its argument on a regulation from 1945, when Britain controlled what is now Israel, that was carried over into Israeli law when the state was established in 1948. It is known as “Defense regulation (emergency) 1945, regulation 119.”
The regulation is broadly written, allowing a “A Military Commander” to destroy the home of “anyone who offended, or attempted an offense, or assisted offenders or abetted offenders after the fact,” as determined by a military court.
Multiple international law experts say that home demolition is illegal under international law because it is a form of collective punishment, which is banned by the Geneva Conventions. Israel has long argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to its presence in territories it has captured, because the land in question was not the internationally recognized territory of any state prior to 1967.
The Biden administration also considers home demolitions to be collective punishment. “We attach a good deal of priority to this, knowing that the home of an entire family shouldn’t be demolished for the action of one individual,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in 2021.
Israeli human rights groups, including B’tselem and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, agree with international scholars that the practice violates international law. B’tselem cites both the Fourth Geneva Convention and a verse in Deuteronomy that reads, “Parents shall not be put to death for children, nor children be put to death for parents: they shall each be put to death only for their own crime.”
Who owns the land once a home is demolished?
Under the 1945 regulation, military authorities maintain control of the land, and it reverts to the original owners — if they are present — once military authorities leave.
How long does it take for a home demolition to take place? What happens to the family?
Generally, the military consults with Israel’s intelligence services before ordering a home demolition.In the case of high-profile attacks, however, the order may come down immediately, as it did on Friday. Families have 48 hours to appeal a demolition to the military commander or another relevant authority.
However, Israel’s Supreme Court has reserved the right to review demolition orders. This may delay demolition for months or years, but B’Tselem reports that in the majority of cases, the court ultimately upholds the demolition. In one notable case in 2018, the court stopped the demolition after the family presented evidence showing that the assailant suffered from a mental illness.
Homes may be demolished by bulldozers. Apartments or rooms are generally filled with cement, rendering them unlivable. Families sometimes split up among relatives, at least in the near term, according to a United Nations report.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the army commission that recommended ending the practice in 2005 reported that families of the terrorists often rebuild their homes with compensation funds from the Palestinian Authority and other sources. The Palestinian Authority pays monthly stipends to the families of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel or killed while committing violent attacks. Israel and its advocates decry the payments as an incentive for terrorism.
How many home demolitions have taken place? Are homes demolished for reasons other than deterrence?
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, more than 50 homes “have been either fully or partially demolished” between 2014 and 2019 as a deterrent to terrorism. Hamoked, an Israeli human rights group, placed the total since 2014 at 75, according to Haaretz.
Israel has demolished a far greater number of Palestinian buildings due to lack of a building permit. Palestinian groups and Israeli human rights organizations argue that Palestinians face discrimination in obtaining such permits. Israel also has a policy of demolishing Palestinian dwellings for being built in a closed military zone.
The same academic paper that concluded demolishing the homes of suicide attackers was an effective deterrent also found that home demolitions for other reasons — including as a preventative measure — spurred an increase in terror attacks.
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Rashida Tlaib Introduces Resolution ‘Recognizing Ongoing Nakba’
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday reintroduced a congressional resolution recognizing the 78th anniversary of what she described as the “ongoing nakba,” using the Arabic term for “catastrophe” deployed by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
The resolution, introduced on the anniversary of Israel’s independence, accuses the Jewish state of carrying out “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” and “genocide” against Palestinians, language that many pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress and advocacy groups strongly reject as inflammatory and inaccurate. The measure also calls for renewed US support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an agency that has faced mounting scrutiny from Israel and several Western governments over allegations that employees participated in or supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
In a statement announcing the resolution, Tlaib argued that the so-called nakba “did not end” with the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and continues today through Israeli military operations and settlement expansion.
“War criminal Netanyahu and his cabinet have repeatedly threatened to ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, annex the land, and permanently occupy it. Today, they are extending these same threats towards southern Lebanon,” she said, referring to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military operations against US-designated terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. “As we mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, we honor all of those killed since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine began and all those who have been forced from their homes and violently displaced from their land.”
Activists often invoke the term “nakba” when discussing the displacement of some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs following Israel’s War of Independence, many of whom left the nascent state for varied reasons, including that they were encouraged by Arab leaders to flee their homes to make way for the invading Arab armies. At the same time, about 850,000 Jews were forced to flee or expelled from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 20th century, primarily in the aftermath of Israel’s declaring independence.
Tlaib’s resolution is co-sponsored by several prominent progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Summer Lee (PA).
The move is likely to draw fierce criticism from pro-Israel lawmakers and Jewish organizations, many of whom argue the resolution ignores the historical context surrounding Israel’s founding and the 1948 war. Israel accepted the United Nations partition plan in 1947 to create two states, one Jewish and one Arab, while neighboring Arab states rejected it and launched a military invasion after Israel declared independence.
The resolution also calls for a so-called Palestinian “right of return,” a demand insisting that potentially millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the land of Israel, a step that, according to proponents, would result in the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state.
“This immense trauma, including the loss of their loved ones and connections to the communities they grew up in, needs to be repaired. True peace must be built on justice and the inalienable right of return for Palestinian refugees,” Tlaib said in her statement.
While refugees are generally defined as those who flee a country out of credible fear of persecution, UNRWA uniquely defines Palestinian refugees to include all descendants of those who left the land, regardless of where they were born.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of the US Congress, has emerged as one of Israel’s loudest critics on Capitol Hill, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of genocide and drawing rebuke from fellow lawmakers.
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Toronto Sees 50% Drop in 2025 Hate Crimes, Yet 82% of Religiously Motivated Attacks Target Jews
A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Even as Toronto recorded an overall decline in reported hate crimes last year, newly released data shows the city’s Jewish community continued to face disproportionately high levels of targeted antisemitism and violence amid an increasingly concerning social climate.
On Thursday, Toronto Police released its annual hate crime statistical report, showing that Jews accounted for 82 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2025, compared to 14 percent targeting Muslims.
Even though the Jewish community makes up less than 3 percent of Toronto’s population, officials now warn that Jewish residents are 14 times more likely than other residents to be targeted in a hate incident.
With 81 anti-Jewish hate crimes recorded, Jews and Israelis were the targets of 35 percent of all reported hate incidents in the city.
Despite a 50 percent overall decline in reported hate crimes, from 443 in 2024 to 231 in 2025, Toronto has seen a 40 percent increase in such incidents so far this year compared with the same period last year.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw noted that, even with the overall decline, the Jewish community continued to be the primary target of hate-motivated offenses.
“We are steadfast in our commitment to confronting hate in all its forms and making it easier for people to come forward and report incidents of hate,” Demkiw said in a press release.
Because police-reported hate crime data only includes incidents that come to the attention of authorities and are later confirmed or suspected to be hate-driven, official figures likely underestimate the true scale of such incidents.
Over the past two years, Toronto authorities have expanded law enforcement capacity and resources to investigate hate crimes by establishing a Counter-Terrorism Security Unit and increasing specialized training for officers, while also strengthening Holocaust education initiatives and introducing digital literacy programs for youth aimed at countering online radicalization.
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice President Michelle Stock called the latest statistics “deeply alarming,” warning of a broader reality of hostility that Jewish families across the city are confronting on a daily basis.
“Toronto prides itself on being a city where people of all backgrounds can live openly, safely and without fear. Those values are undermined when any community no longer feels secure expressing its identity in public,” Stock said in a statement.
“From synagogues to schools to public displays of Jewish identity, blatant attacks against the Jewish community are becoming more frequent and more brazen,” she continued. “Jewish Canadians are being targeted simply for who they are. No one should have to think twice about wearing a kippah, attending synagogue, sending their children to Jewish schools or participating openly in Jewish life.”
The city’s figures reflect a broader nationwide rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility, with the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada reporting a record high in anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2025 for the second consecutive year, documenting 6,800 such cases across the country.
According to the latest report, antisemitic incidents nationwide increased by 9.3 percent last year, surpassing the previous record total of 6,219 set in 2024.
With an average of 18.6 incidents per day, this figure represents a 145.6 percent increase from 2022, before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Early 2026 data already indicate the country is now on track to see its most violent year against the Jewish community in recent memory, with more violent antisemitic attacks recorded so far this year than during all of 2025, B’nai Brith Canada reported.
In total, 11 violent antisemitic incidents have already been recorded across the country since January, surpassing the 10 violent cases documented during all of last year
“These brazen attacks on Jewish Canadians are a sign of a crisis of antisemitism that has spiraled out of control,” Simon Wolle, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, said in a statement.
“Violence such as this, which has escalated from targeting synagogues to targeting Jewish people directly, does not occur in a vacuum. It is what happens when governments fail to act despite mounting evidence that antisemitism is becoming more normalized and dangerous,” Wolle continued.
Last week, a group of Jewish worshippers standing outside the Congregation Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Montreal was targeted in a drive-by shooting, leaving one person with minor injuries.
A week earlier, three visibly Jewish residents were targeted in a separate antisemitic attack when suspects opened fire with a gel-pellet gun, causing minor injuries.
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Israel, Lebanon Extend Ceasefire by 45 Days as Washington Talks Conclude
Smoke rises following explosions in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, April 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 45-day extension of a ceasefire that has tamped down the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as two days of talks facilitated by Washington concluded on Friday with an agreement to hold further meetings in the coming weeks.
“The April 16 cessation of hostilities will be extended by 45 days to enable further progress,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said on X, adding that the talks aimed at settling decades of conflict between the two countries were “highly productive.” The ceasefire was set to expire on Sunday.
The Lebanese and Israeli delegations issued positive statements about the talks, their third meeting since Israel intensified air attacks on Lebanon after Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on March 2, three days into the US-Israeli war with Iran. Israel‘s bombing campaign and ground invasion into Lebanon’s south displaced some 1.2 million people, before US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire last month following initial talks between the two countries’ ambassadors in Washington.
Hezbollah and Israel have continued to trade blows, with hostilities focused in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces are occupying a self-declared security zone.
LEBANON WANTS HOSTILITIES TO CEASE
The US-led mediation between Lebanon and Israel has emerged in parallel to diplomacy aimed at ending the US-Iran conflict. Iran has said ending Israel‘s war in Lebanon is one of its demands for a deal over the wider conflict.
Lebanon’s delegation, which is attending despite objections from Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah, has prioritized a cessation in hostilities in the talks. Israel says Hezbollah, which openly seeks the Jewish state’s destruction, must be disarmed as part of any broader peace agreement with Lebanon.
The Washington meetings, the highest-level contact between Lebanon and Israel in decades, have evolved to include security and military officials. Pigott said on X that a new “security track” of the negotiations would be launched at the Pentagon on May 29, while the State Department will convene the two sides again June 2-3 for a political track of negotiations.
“We hope these discussions will advance lasting peace between the two countries, full recognition of each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and establishing genuine security along their shared border,” Pigott said.
Lebanon’s delegation said in a statement that it wanted to turn the momentum from the ceasefire into a lasting peace agreement. “The extension of the ceasefire and the establishment of a US-facilitated security track provide critical breathing space for our citizens, reinforce state institutions, and advance a political pathway toward lasting stability,” the delegation said.
Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said the talks were “frank and constructive.”
“There will be ups and downs, but the potential for success is great. What will be paramount throughout negotiations is the security of our citizens and our soldiers,” Leiter said on X.