Beatings, Then Bulldozers: How Israel Punishes Palestinians for Building on Their Own Land
Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 10:15PM by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac 19 April 2025 Haaretz
Israeli Border Police who came to a quiet West Bank village to oversee two house demolitions mercilessly beat the members of one family, not sparing even the elderly
Every few minutes, Nasser, groaning with pain, shifts from the prone position to a sitting posture – a lower-back vertebra was shattered by the blows of a policeman.Credit: Alex Levac
The living room of the Manasra family in the village of Wadi Fukin looks more like an outpatient clinic. Sprawled on a threadbare sofa is the father of the family, Nasser Manasra, a 64-year-old construction worker. He has six children and 19 grandchildren. His son Ibrahim, a construction worker of 39 and father of six, is sitting on the sofa opposite him. Every few minutes, Nasser, groaning with pain, shifts from the prone position to a sitting posture – a lower-back vertebra was shattered by the blows of a policeman. His son Ibrahim's head is bandaged, in the wake of 10 stitches he needed after being struck by a metal object.
The two, father and son, are victims of the unrestrained violence of the Border Police unit that came here last week to provide security for the demolition of the house of another member of the family, Mohammed. According to the videos we saw, and the testimony of eyewitnesses, there were no disturbances by the residents, but that didn't stop the policemen from laying into everyone who approached or those who tried to help the wounded, most of them elderly. The Border Police never act as if they don't see Palestinians as human beings, so they are unable to distinguish between young and old – everyone was beaten with equal brutality.
Wadi Fukin is a small village west of Bethlehem in the valley between the large ultra-Orthodox settlement of Betar Ilit (in the West Bank) and the town of Tzur Hadassah (inside the Green Line). There are fewer than 1,500 villagers amid many settlers, who come to the village to have their cars repaired and washed, and to shop. There are few places left in the West Bank where this anachronistic way of life still exists. Nevertheless, since the start of the war, most of the villagers have been unemployed, as Palestinians have been barred completely from working in Israel.
Tuesday of last week was a day like any other in Wadi Fukin. Nasser Manasra set out early in the morning for his small vegetable patch on the village outskirts. He too can no longer enter Israel, though two of his sons work in Betar Ilit. His face contorted with pain, he relates that at about 6:30 he could see a convoy of 10 to 15 vehicles of the Border Police and the Civil Administration (a unit of the military government), along with two bulldozers, preparing to set out from Tzur Hadassah in the direction of his village. This boded ill, Nasser was certain: his son Mohammed had recently received a demolition order for his new house. He was fearful that the force was heading for his son's still unoccupied home.
The order was issued last November, after the construction of the handsome new house had been completed. The Civil Administration customarily waits until construction has concluded before setting the demolition process in motion, perhaps in order to twist the knife.
Mohammed, who's 41 and has three children, with a fourth on the way, also worked in Israel and is now unemployed. He built the house over the past four years on the family's private land. He tried to obtain a construction permit from the Civil Administration, but no such permits have been issued for a long time to Palestinians, so they have no choice but to build without a permit. Dozens of wild settler outposts, most of them violent, have sprung up in the West Bank since the war started, in some cases on stolen private land. No one has considered demolishing them, but when it comes to Mohammed Manasra's new home, which stands on land he owns, demolition is obligatory.
At around 7:30, Nasser saw the convoy approaching his village. Its first stop was another house that had been built without a permit, the home of Issam Manasra. The wrecking crew commenced with its work. Nasser hurried home, gathered up Mohammed's children – his son's family was still living on the floor above – and together they set out for the new house. It was a stone-covered structure with a closed garage for two cars, 280 sq. meters (about 3,000 sq. ft.) built on one level, with everything ready for the occupants to move in. Mohammed had invested 400,000 shekels (approximately $110,000) in his dream house. When he began, he himself was working in Betar Ilit.
By around 9:30, the first house had been razed and the convoy began moving toward Mohammed's residence. About 10 members of the family were at the scene, Nasser says. No one threw stones or tried to resist. One young person climbed onto the roof of the house, the Border Police threatened to arrest him if he did not come down at once, and Nasser also urged him to come back down – which he did. Once he was on the ground, the policemen began beating him, for no reason, according to Nasser. When Nasser, the 64-year-old father and grandfather ran to help him, he too was pummeled and knocked down on the rocky terrain. He felt excruciating pain in his back. When his son Ibrahim tried to help him, he was struck on the head and wounded by a metal object, probably a tear-gas grenade.
The family managed to extricate Nasser, but the pummeling of Ibrahim continued unabated. Another of the brothers was also beaten when he tried to bring him water. Those who flay mercilessly and without cause Jewish demonstrators on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, of course flay mercilessly and without cause Palestinians in Wadi Fukin. Nasser's nephew, also named Mohammed, 25, was pistol-whipped, while Nasser's older brother Nayef, 73, was struck on the shoulder by a rifle butt when he attempted to come to Nasser's aid. The father of the wounded Mohammed, Nidal, 56, also suffered a beating, as did yet another brother of Nasser's, Jamal, who's 63.
In fact, everyone who approached the melee and tried to help the wounded found themselves attacked by the troops. The Israelis also fired a tear-gas grenade at a neighbor, Umar Sukar, 66, whom the family says was standing at a considerable distance – 20 to 30 meters – from the event.
Two videos shot by an eyewitness show policemen surrounding an elderly man who is walking down the slope, apparently Nasser, and shoving him until he falls to the ground. They then kick and pummel him. Afterward they beat a young person who came to his aid, and another elderly man, both of whom fall to the ground. The videos show no hint of violent resistance, only police violence.
"Kick him out! Kick him out!" the troops – heroes over older people – are heard shouting. It's not hard to imagine how they would react if the victims were their grandfathers. In another video, a young person is seen lying on the ground, bare from the waist up – his shirt apparently removed by the policemen – with the pounding of the heavy machinery audible in the background.
A spokesperson for the Israel Police stated this week, in response to a query from Haaretz: "During enforcement activity by Border Police fighters and Civil Administration officers in Wadi Fukin, in [the territory of] the Etzion Brigade, on April 8, 2025, a terrorist attacked a Border Police fighter and tried to grab his weapon. The terrorist was wounded in his head during the assault attempt, was detained at the site and evacuated to hospital."
Suddenly we have a "terrorist" in the arena. And not just any "terrorist," but one who tried to snatch a policeman's rifle. If so, how is it that he wasn't previously arrested? But what do words matter? The police requested that Haaretz send them the video showing the beatings, but their response to it flagrantly ignored the images and invented a "terrorist."
To sum up: Seven people, most of them elderly, were beaten and wounded, and taken to a hospital for treatment. Four of them were kept overnight. Nasser's body is still battered and he suffers from severe pain; Ibrahim's head remains bandaged. All they wanted was to help their family members. As far as is known, none of them tried to attack the troops.
At about 11 A.M., immediately after the house had been demolished and the wounded evacuated, Amer Aruri, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, arrived at the scene. He saw Border Policemen clashing with a kippah-wearing Jew. This was Anton, a friend of the family, who lives in Tzur Hadassah, overlooking their home, and had come to assist the family. He tried to prevent the demolition and to explain to the security personnel that this family had never hurt anyone. He also organized a petition, which was signed by dozens of residents of Tzur Hadassah, calling for a halt to the house demolitions in the friendly and peaceful village. But to no avail, of course. Aruri saw the policemen forcefully pushing Anton, an Israeli.
During the demolition, another resident of Wadi Fukin, Razi Manasra, stood on the roof of his home, about one kilometer from the site as the crow flies, and watched the events. At 11:30 he collapsed and died on the roof. He'd had a heart condition and suffered a lethal heart attack.
We then drove to the ruins. From among the heaps of rubble, it's clear that a new and stylish house had stood here – ceramics and stone facing are now crushed into fragments – and that no expense had been spared in its construction. Here stood the two-car garage, to the right was the living room, at the far end the kitchen and bathrooms, and over there three bedrooms.
Opposite the ruins is an olive grove, bounded by prickly-pear cactuses (sabras), and a beehive, and adjacent to them a tin shack that had been a chicken coop and is now used for stone-cutting, in place of the shop that Israel demolished two years ago at another site. Mournfully, Mohammed shows us photos of his house before the demolition.
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