Ramallah: Israeli occupation forces on Monday demolished the houses of two Palestinians over the suspicion that they kidnapped and killed three Israeli colonists in Hebron, south of the West Bank. A third house belonging to another Palestinian suspect was sealed so no one could enter it.
The demolition of the houses of Amer Abu Aisha and Hussam Al Qawasmi saw hundreds of local Palestinian youths clash with Israeli forces. The youths hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers who responded with gunfire, rubber coated bullets and tear gas bombs. At least ten Palestinian youths received treatment for injuries at Al Ahli Hospital in Hebron following the clashes.
A large Israeli force earlier raided the city of Hebron and surrounded the three houses. The engineering wing of the Israeli forces then planted large quantities of explosives in the houses and of Abu Aisha and Al Qawasmi and detonated them.
Israel accuses the three Palestinians of setting up a Hamas-affiliated cell responsible for the June 12 kidnapping of Israeli yeshiva students Gil-Ad Shaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel from a hitchhiking location in Gush Etzion. The bodies of the colonists were recovered on June 30 from a plot of land that Al Qawasmi had bought a few months ago.
The families of Abu Aisha and Al Qawasmi categorically reject the accusations against the two men.
A senior official from the Hebron governorate told Gulf News that the families of the three accused Palestinians, particularly those of Abu Aisha and Al Qawasmi, had petitioned the Israeli courts to spare their houses, which had been accommodating 10 other families besides them.
The official said that Israeli occupation forces had earlier notified the families of Abu Aisha and Al Qawasmi that their houses would be demolished in punishment for the crimes. The families of the three Palestinians accused of the crime insisted that their sons did not have anything to do with the kidnapping and killing of the three colonists, claiming that the three were murdered as part of an Israeli plot and that the Israelis were exploiting the kidnapping and killing of the colonists for political gains and to achieve its ulterior agenda in the West Bank.
The families acknowledged that the Israeli military had recovered the bodies of the colonists from a land recently bought by Al Qawasmi, but maintained that that alone did not establish the fact that the land owner was responsible for the kidnapping and killing as it was open agricultural land and could be used by anybody during the night.
