RAMALLAH, Thursday, January 02, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today overnight notified the family of two Palestinian prisoners of their intention to demolish their house in Kobar town, located to the northwest of Ramallah city.

Widad Barghouthi, a media professor at Birzeit University, said that Israeli military forces broke into her family’s house in the village, held the occupants in one room and inspected their ID cards.

She added that soldiers wrecked havoc into and took photos and measurements for the house in preparation for the planned punitive demolition.

Barghouthi, who teaches media studies, was rounded up by Israeli forces during a predawn raid into the village on September 1, 2019, and held for 16 days before being released on September 17.

Barghouthi’s sons, Karmel and Qassam, are currently in Israeli imprisonment.

Karmel, a 30-year-old father of two children who has graduated from Birzeit University with a degree in accounting, was detained on September 1 at a military checkpoint while returning from a wedding party in Hebron. Qassam, 25, who has graduated from al-Quds University with a degree in journalism, was arrested few days earlier during an Israeli raid into his hometown.

They have been detained purportedly for being affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Israel resorts to punitively demolish the family homes of Palestinians as a mean of deterrence- accused of being involved in attacks against Israelis, a policy that Israel does not apply to Israeli settlers who were involved in fatal attacks against Palestinians.

The policy was widely condemned by human rights groups as “a collective punishment” and “a war crime and crime against humanity”.

K.F.