DUBAI: On a cold January morning in 2017, Salem and his wife, Umm Mohammed, watched as bulldozers flattened the modest shelters they had built for their four children. It was the second time in three years their home had been demolished.
“To demolish someone’s house is to wreck their life,” Umm Mohammed told the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the time.
Salem’s family was one of two displaced that winter, when the Israeli Civil Administration, accompanied by soldiers, demolished six structures in Jabal Al-Baba, a small Palestinian Bedouin hamlet perched on a hillside near the sprawling settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
More than eight years later, the threat of forced displacement looms larger than ever. Some 22 families in Jabal Al-Baba have received demolition orders, giving them 60 days to destroy their own homes.
Israeli security forces, often accompanied by dogs, have repeatedly raided their dwellings at night.
