No end seen to Israel’s brutalities

Military demolishes homes of two Palestinians in West Bank

occupied jerusalem — Israel demolished the homes of two Palestinians who allegedly committed separate attacks against Israelis that killed five people, the military said on Tuesday.

The West Bank homes of the alleged attackers, identified as Raid Halil and Mahmoud Harub, were demolished as a five month-long wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence is roiling the region.

The assailants carried out two separate attacks on the same day last November. One stabbed and killed two Israelis in a Tel Aviv office building. The other opened fire on cars in the West Bank, killing one Israeli, an American student and a Palestinian. Both attackers were apprehended.

Israel says home demolitions are an effective tool that can deter attacks but critics say the tactic amounts to collective punishment.

Since the violence erupted in September, some 28 Israelis have been killed in near-daily Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings.

At least 166 Palestinians have been killed, 119 said by Israel to have been attackers. The rest have been killed in clashes.

Israel says the violence is fueled by a Palestinian campaign of lies and incitement.

The Palestinians says it is the result of frustrations stemming from nearly 50 years of occupation.

Also on Tuesday, more than 30 former Israeli generals, ministers and other officials called for the division of Jerusalem, saying a wall should be erected between the Jewish and Arab sides of the city. In a full-page ad in the daily Yediot Aharonot, the group said Israel’s capture of those areas in the 1967 war was a “historic error.”

Jerusalem remains one of the most intractable issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. —

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