Israel occupation forces say ‘sorry’ to Palestinian family after destroying house

A young Palestinian has told Anadolu how Israeli forces destroyed his family’s home in the occupied West Bank and set his father’s car on fire while it was parked in front of the house. Ahmed Nasser, 30, lives in the Iktaba neighbourhood of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank. He was awakened at 6am on Thursday by the sound of gunfire aimed at his home.

“For no reason, we were nearly killed by Israeli army gunfire,” explained Nasser as he described the moment that he experienced with his wife and their 3-year-old twins. “We woke up to the sound of bullets being fired at the house from all sides. I spent about 40 minutes under the bed with my wife and children. I shouted several times, ‘What is going on?’ but to no avail.”

He pointed out that his father’s car, which was parked in front of the house, was hit by an anti-tank rifle grenade, which burned it completely.

“After 40 minutes, we were ordered to leave the house. We went outside, and I was immediately restrained and searched thoroughly,” he recalled. “The army claimed that a wanted person was in my house. I told them that there was no one, but they insisted and forced my wife to return to the house and open all the doors. They even sent in a drone to film, but they found nobody.”

Nasser claimed that he was used as a human shield by Israeli forces as they stormed into the house. “They found nothing, except that one door was stuck and wouldn’t open, so they shot it open with live ammunition.”

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As they left the house, an Israeli officer told Nasser: “Two hours ago, your house was beautiful; now it’s destroyed. We’re sorry.”

“What can I say? My house was destroyed, bullets went through everything, my father’s car was burned, and the officer just says, ‘Sorry.’”

The Israeli army launched a military operation in the Tulkarm refugee camp early on Thursday, with bulldozers destroying roads, shops and vehicles in the camp. Three Palestinians in the camp were killed in an Israeli air strike, said the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Sporadic armed confrontations were reported in several areas of the camp, along with the detonation of explosive devices. In separate statements, Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, said that their fighters had challenged Israeli troops during their raid in Tulkarm.

Over the past few years, the Israeli army has conducted regular raids in the occupied West Bank, which have escalated during the war against the Palestinians in Gaza since last October. Palestinians have also been attacked by illegal Israeli settlers. At least 640 Palestinians have since been killed and over 5,400 others have been wounded by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, said the ministry.

In a landmark opinion on 19 July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land to be unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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