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Left-wing group appeals demolition order against terrorist’s home

The killer of IDF soldier Ronen Lubarsky shouldn’t have his home destroyed, says pro-Palestinian human rights group supported by the European Union and New Israel Fund.

By Batya Jerenberg,  World Israel News

Islam Yousef Abu Hamid murdered First Sergeant Ronen Lubarsky during an arrest operation carried out by his Duvdevan counter-terrorism unit in May in the Ramallah area by dropping a marble slab on his head, but his house shouldn’t be destroyed as a deterrent, says Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual in an appeal filed at the Supreme Court.

The extreme-left organization is fighting a demolition order given by Central Command head Nadav Padan earlier this week, and Lubarsky’s family is hoping the court will stand firm, Arutz-7 reported Wednesday.

“We congratulate the defense establishment on issuing a demolition order and hope the Supreme Court will not delay the demolition or render it meaningless by destroying a room or a wall,” the family said in the report, since “the purpose of the destruction is not revenge but deterrence and prevention of terror.”

They are also demanding that Hamid receive the death penalty instead of a prison sentence, since terrorists receive “living conditions that families in need could only dream about,” as Lubarsky’s brother Arik said when the IDF arrested the fugitive.

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According to its website, Hamoked regularly files appeals to the High Court of Justice on behalf of terrorists’ families to ask that their homes not be demolished. The group also advocates for the return of terrorists’ bodies for burial, for the removal of security checkpoints and roadblocks, and for enabling family visits to security prisoners.

In an NGO Monitor report based on Hamoked’s own financial reports, the group has received a vast majority of its funding (over NIS 21 million between 2012-2018) from foreign governmental bodies, including countries such as Norway, Belgium, the EU and Switzerland, as well as from the UN. In addition, between 2008-2016, the New Israel Fund donated $721,601.

Already in 2006, in a brief submitted to the Jerusalem District Court, Israel’s State Prosecutor stated that Hamoked’s “self-presentation as ‘a human rights organization’ has no basis in reality and is designed to mislead.”

Terror victim: ‘It’s infuriating, it’s painful’

During one appeal to the HCJ last year against the demolition of the home of the terrorist who killed Chief Superintendent Baruch Mizrahi, his wife, who was wounded in the attack, spoke on Channel 20 of how Hamoked lawyers had come to support the attacker instead of his victims.

“The terrorist was released in the Shalit deal and spent a short period of time in prison, and the terrorist received privileges that we did not receive as victims,” she said. “Hamoked is in the High Court of Justice and intervenes in every decision. It’s outrageous, it’s infuriating, it’s painful…. They are completely in favor of the terrorists…. They smile at them, worry that an ‘injustice’ will be done to them, forgetting that the real injustice was done to the victims.”