The IDF’s Grotesque Practice of Ransacking Palestinian Homes Is Israeli Apartheid in Action

A new report from a coalition of human rights groups details the horror of Israel’s apartheid-style home invasions in the West Bank — yet another revelation about the horrifying realities of what US military aid to Israel is funding.

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Israeli soldiers raid a Palestinian home in the village of Beit Omar, near the West Bank town of Hebron, on January 25, 2008.(Hazem Bader / AFP via Getty Images)


When we think of Israel’s repression of Palestinians, we think of the kinds of scenes we saw at the start of this year: indiscriminate bombing of civilians, soldiers brutalizing nonviolent protesters, settlers brazenly stealing houses left temporarily empty. What we miss are the horrors and indignities Palestinians are subject to when cameras aren’t rolling and there are few witnesses around.

“A Life Exposed,” a new report produced jointly by human rights organizations Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, shines a spotlight on just one such indignity: the Israeli military’s practice of arbitrary home invasions, or raids, in the West Bank.

When carried out within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, such actions require having a warrant or probable cause, and are subject to a host of other rules and regulations of the sort democratic societies usually mandate. But the Israel Defense Force (IDF) is free to barge into a Palestinian home in the occupied Palestinian territories without any of those, effectively for any reason and at any time, regardless of whether the action produces any results. These reasons include arresting someone; looking for money, weapons, and other objects; seizing a property for military operations; and “mapping” — gathering information about a home’s physical layout and the people who live there, a practice that was recently barred after years of outrage.

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