The Israel Defense Forces said on Monday it would be demolishing the Hebron-area home of the terrorist who murdered a 12-year-old Israeli boy and wounded three others in a Dec. 11 shooting.
Ezz el-Din Malouh, from Beit Awwa, 14 miles west of Hebron, “carried out a severe terror attack on Dec. 11, 2024, at the Al-Khader Junction, in which 12-year-old Yehoshua Aharon Tuvya Simcha, of blessed memory, was murdered, and three other civilians injured,” the military stated.
Malouh, the main suspect in the shooting, was indicted in an Israeli military court along with three of his accomplices in early February.
The terrorist surrendered to Israeli security forces after they launched a manhunt which included a military cordon around the city of Bethlehem, according to local media reports.
The terrorist allegedly fired 23 bullets at a bus traveling on the Route 60 highway from Beitar Illit to Jerusalem. The bus driver continued to southern Jerusalem’s Tunnel Checkpoint, where it stopped so the wounded could receive treatment and be evacuated to hospital.
The 12-year-old victim, who was reportedly 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.
Last week, the IDF demolished the Hebron home of Abed el-Khader Kawasme, responsible for the Nov. 16, 2023, attack that claimed the life of IDF Cpl. Avraham Fetena and wounded six at the Tunnel Checkpoint.
In a separate announcement on May 21, the military said it was seeking to demolish the Samaria home of Samer Hussein, the terrorist whose Nov. 29 shooting wounded 10 Israelis, three of which seriously.
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.