Destruction of homes, erasure of history

This chapter explores Israel’s policy of house demolition. It questions the motivation and justification for this offered by the Israeli authorities, chronicles the experiences of families living with the threat and insecurity of a demolition order, and records the impact on their lives after their home has been destroyed. This work has been carried out under the guidance of an Israeli peace group, the ‘Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions’ (ICAHD). ICAHD is a non-violent direct-action organisation, which specifically questions the policy of house demolition in the Palestinian territories. ICAHD works to expose the bureaucratic processes that sustain these practices of occupation through targeted interventions - gathering statistics and information, challenging planning procedures and laws, and “illegally” reconstructing homes destroyed by the civil administration.