Video evidence:
We can judge for ourselxes the human impact. In all of the following JCB equipment is used, profiting the Bamford family and, via JCB donations, supporting the NSPCC.
This is the short B’tselem video which we have given to NSPCC ( B’tselem is an Israeli Human Rights rganisation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVEDJKdxkGg&feature=emb_logo
However, there are many other short videos freely available showing the reality of Israel’s planned, systematic policy of home demolitions – one strand of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, such as these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x_zujhQSGo&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xRIS1_QxLQ&feature=emb_logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBl8rd3PPII&feature=emb_logo
Between January 1 and August 31, 2020, Israeli authorities carried out 89 home demolitions in East Jerusalem, according to B’Tselem. Palestinian property owners demolished their own homes in 59 of the cases to avoid paying thousands of dollars in fees to Israeli authorities to carry out the demolition. This short video gives the context.
https://www.facebook.com/MiddleEastEye/videos/381816416176364
The impact - and the intention - of Israel’s policies, serviced by JCB equipment.
- Defence of the Child Palestine (DCI Palestine) is a rich resource. E.g. “Killing our Memories: Who do house demolitions really punish?” and see this interview with a peace activist
- Academics Mikko Joronen of Tampere University, Finland and Mark Griffiths of Northumbria University, (2019) provide an analytical framework to characterise some of the traumatic damage done to children in an article called “The affective politics of precarity: Home demolitions in occupied Palestine.”
- On a simplified level, they discuss:
1 Anticipatory fears of the demolition; “the demolition before the demolition” as one Palestinian woman put the experience of being given a demolition order.
2 A sense of “precarity” which undermines the whole essence of what a home means; the family structure, community coherence and identity is under attack.
3. Damage to the home as a locus of personal / family memory and security.
4 Horizons, hopes and dreams may be restricted; looking to the future becomes very difficult
5 But there is the impulse to rebuild, to stay. Resoluteness to stay in vulnerable sites – in homes – is a crucial part of living under the threat of home demolition. Sumud, resistance, resilience.