The document summarizes Israel's policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to make way for Israeli settlements and control land and resources. It provides statistics on the number of homes demolished by Israel since 1967 in violation of international law. It also describes the obstacles Palestinians face in obtaining permits to build homes and the impact of the Israeli separation wall and restricted access on Palestinian communities.

1. Israel’s Honed Policy of House Demolitions and Land-Grab The Increasingly-Frequently-Used Policy of the Apartheid Regime: the Demolition of Palestinian Homes to Set the Stage for Expansion of Israeli Settlements and Land and Resource Grab. Israel’s policy of house demolitions seeks to confine Palestinians to small enclaves, leaving most of the land free for Israeli settlement. --ICAHD [Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions]

4. A Village Near Bethlehem: Over 60 Homes and one Mosque Slated for Demolition in Village; Numerous Houses Previously Demolished. The land of Walaja village, just east of Bethlehem, has been annexed into Jerusalem municipality. Israel gets the land, Palestinians get nothing .

5. After their home was demolished for the first time in January 2006, the family lived for two months—in winter—in this tent. Demolitions come very early in the morning, with little to no advance warning: “ Imagine sleeping in your home and someone knocks on your door telling you to get out of your house, that it will be demolished. You have no time to take your clothes, to take anything. It is all destroyed.”

6. Using their own money, they re-built their home. It was demolished a 2 nd time in December, 2006. The Holy Land Trust and ICAHD came together to re-build their house yet again. There is a great likelihood it will yet again be demolished by the Israeli government and Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).

7. Neighbours came to watch re-building efforts, intimately familiar re-building efforts, along with intimately familiar frustration and sorrow. One neighbour has been in court for 12 years, protesting the illegal demolition of his home by the IOF. He has spent vast amounts in court fees and still does not have the right to build anything on his property: not even a chicken coop—the chickens stay, instead, inside an old van. Although Israel’s arbitrary and self-serving laws are absurdly transparent, no one holds Israel accountable for its actions.

16. Sharing the details of their various house demolitions, assaults by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces), harassment by soldiers and police alike, and frustration at the unaccountability of Israeli law with regard to Palestinian rights.

17. Some of the internationals re-building and learning from their Palestinian hosts.

21. Rebuilding in Anata: an ICAHD project.

22. ICAHD organizes 2 week international work camps each year, to re-build homes destroyed by Israel. Internationals of all ages and nationalities unite to re-build.

23. Building walls.

24. While the home ICAHD had chosen to re-build was under construction, the IOF bulldozed a smaller home in the area for no reason. ICAHD spontaneously decided to re-build the demolished home at the same time as the project underway. Seen from inside the house being re-built by ICAHD, a newly demolished home in the valley.

26. He has tried 4 times to obtain the necessary permit to build a home on his own land. Each attempt cost him US $5,000. Each attempt was rejected, for ever-changing reasons, by the Israeli government. His first home was demolished after 2.5 years. The IOF, upon arriving to demolish the home in the early hours of the morning, threw tear gas canisters into the house where his family was asleep. He was badly beaten. None of this is unusual.