The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday it will demolish the home of one of the terrorists who murdered a 12-year-old Israeli boy and wounded three others in a Dec. 11 shooting attack in Judea.
Thabet Mohammed Masalmeh was part of a terrorist cell that “carried out a severe shooting attack at the Al-Khader Junction on Dec. 11,” the military said.
“In the attack, 12-year-old Yehoshua Aharon Tuvya Simcha, of blessed memory, was murdered, and three civilians were injured,” the IDF added.
The terrorist cell allegedly fired 23 bullets at a bus traveling on the Route 60 highway from Beitar Illit to Jerusalem. The bus driver continued to the Tunnel Checkpoint, south of Jerusalem, where it stopped so the wounded could receive treatment and be evacuated to the hospital.
The 12-year-old victim, the son of a prominent rabbi who manages a yeshivah in the ultra-Orthodox Judea city of Beitar Illit, was pronounced dead after a medical team at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center fought for his life for approximately two hours.
In May, the IDF moved to demolish the Hebron-region home of Ezz el-Din Malouh, the main suspect in the Dec. 11 terrorist attack. He was indicted in an Israeli military court along with three accomplices.
The demolition of Palestinian terrorists’ homes has been a subject of controversy for years. Israel’s security establishment believes that the policy bolsters deterrence and prevents further terrorist activity.
In 2023, demolitions all but stopped, according to an Israel Hayom investigation carried out with Zionist NGO Im Tirtzu. However, in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the army has picked up the pace, issuing orders for a significant number of terrorists’ homes.
