Ronen Hanania, 49, of Kiryat Arba, was shot and killed in a terrorist attack near the entrance to Giv’at HaAvot, a Jewish neighborhood near Kiryat Arba, Hebron, on Saturday evening, October 29, 2022. The terrorist, Muhammad Al-Ja’abri, shot Hanania to death with an M-16 rifle, slightly wounding his son Daniel who was sitting next to him and seriously wounding a medic who arrived on the scene. The attack happened at the checkpoint separating Arab Hebron from Kiryat Arba. The local security coordinator hit Ja’abri with his car, and an IDF officer on vacation shot him dead.
IDF forces early Thursday morning demolished the home of Al-Ja’abri’s family. According to Al Quds, the forces raided the house late Wednesday night and evacuated the surrounding houses, before demolishing its internal walls and planting explosives inside. After hours of the prolonged operation, the forces blew up the house, “causing explosions to be heard in the area.”
בתום פעילות בחברון: כוחות צה”ל הרסו את בית המחבל שרצח את רונן חנניה בפיגוע בקריית ארבע באוקטובר 2022 | תיעוד@migansh5 @nurityohanan pic.twitter.com/sbng2uOWP7
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 16, 2023
According to Ha’aretz, the IDF announced in advance its intention to demolish the house, due to its proximity to the homes of Jewish residents.
After the October murder, the IDF decided to destroy the terrorist’s house, where the terrorist’s wife and three minor children lived. Last week, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition filed by the wife, Doa’a Gamgum, and the Center for Individuals’ Protection, who claimed there is no evidence that the demolition would achieve deterrence. Judges Noam Solberg, Yosef Elron, and Anat Baron ruled unanimously to allow the demolition.
However, Judge Baron wrote that “the attempt to present the deterrent effectiveness [of demolitions] as if it were empirically proven is doomed to failure.” The judge instead blamed the wife for a kind of aiding and abetting, writing that she “at the very least suspected his murderous intentions and that he was on the way to carry them out, and despite this, she did not act to prevent the horrific attack.”
I happen to be a right-wing, pro-settlements, anti-terrorism kind of guy, and even I can’t imagine the wife of a murderous Arab terrorist trying to stop him. Clearly, Judge Baron objects to demolitions, but was too afraid to rule against this one, lest she add to the already terrible public image of the high court on fighting terrorism. So she blamed the wife.
Judges Solberg and Elron’s opinion was that “the position of the military commander is that this step may deter potential future threats.” That is to say, unlike what many of us believe, Supreme Court judges are not experts on terrorism and should therefore accept the opinion of the professionals.
