Houses await demolition as Israel visits the sins of the sons on the parents
Palestine, Local, 10/14/1997

It is not clear yet as to whether four houses in the village of Assira Ash-Shamaliya are going to be demolished or not but Israel had made it clear it won't change its decision to demolish those houses, owned by families of four Palestinians whom Israel claims had blown themselves us in two separate suicide bombings in Jerusalem.

By Wednesday morning, the warning given to the four families expires and their lawyers have decided to apply to the commander of the Israeli troops in the area to rescind the orders. Once this application is rejected, lawyer Hosni Kalboneh of the Palestinian Organization for the Protection of Human Right and Environment said, the families will have to apply to the Israeli High Court.

Yousef Jamil Al Shouli, Tewfiq Ali Abu Yassin, Bashar Mohammed Sawalha and Mohammed Ali Jarara' were said by Israel to be the four perpetrators of two suicide bombings, one on 30 July in Mahaneh Yehuda market and one on 4 September in Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. It took Israel several weeks to announce the names of the alleged perpetrators but Hamas sources denied the four had blown themselves up and insisted they were shot dead by Israeli troops.

The Hamas announcement at the time said the four were killed and their bodies taken by the Israeli troops. "When Israel found no way to solve the mystery of the two suicide bombings, it decided to claim that the four were the ones who blew themselves up in Jerusalem," Hamas had declared.

The village of Assira Ash-Shamaliya near Nablus was placed under total siege by the Israeli troops for 19 consecutive days with neither food nor medical supplies being allowed through. Students who live in the village were not permitted to leave to their Najah University in Nablus or to the secondary school which lies just beyond the village boundaries.

So far there has been no explanation why Israel waited for so long to come out with the demolition orders when in similar cases in the past, it would immediately rush to demolish houses of Palestinians involved in suicide bombing attacks. Palestinian sources said the latest failure of the Mossad operation in Amman and the consequent release of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas, from Israeli prisons, had made it difficult for Israel to demolish the houses. Besides, the sources added, Israel wanted to avoid as many political complications as possible and "that is why it left the Assira Ash-Shamaliya front idle for some time."

Previous Stories:
  Assira Ash-Shamaliya reconnected to outside world   (10/9/1997)
  PNA will continue manhunt of Hamas   (10/2/1997)
  Hamas questions suicide bombers' identities   (10/1/1997)

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