IDF Prepares to Demolish Home of Soldier’s Murderer – Again

The IDF is preparing for a second time to demolish the home of the terrorist who in 2018 murdered IDF soldier Ronen Lubarsky, H”yd, after residents of the village of Al-Omri began rebuilding it. Yediot Acharonot reported that construction on the building had begun several weeks ago, and in the wake of that report the army had decided to demolish the building again, the newspaper said Tuesday.

The house of the family of Lubarsky’s murderer, Islam Abu-Hamid was first demolished last December. The army wired and detonated the four-story house, completely demolishing it. During the operation, soldiers fought off dozens of terrorists in the El-Amri refugee camp near Ramallah, where the family lived. No Israeli soldiers were injured in the riots. Unlike the practice in recent demolitions, in which just one story of a house in which a terrorist lived is destroyed, the IDF demolished the entire house.

Lubarsky, 20, was killed in May 2018 after he was severely injured in an IDF action in Ramallah. He was hit in the head by a block of marble by Arab terrorists as soldiers were attempting to make arrests of terrorists in the refugee camp outside Ramallah. Abu-Hamid admitted under interrogation that it was he who threw a block of marble on the head of Lubarsky as he and other soldiers of the Duvdevan unit were carrying out arrests in the camp. It also emerged that his brothers and several older members of his family were members of Hamas, and that he aided them in various acts of terror, including the 1994 murder of Shin Bet agent Noam Cohen, H”yd.

Ronen’s father Vladimir, who is being assisted by the Im Tirzu organization, told Yediot Acharonot that “it is sad that only after the media gets involved in the shameful rebuilding of a terrorist’s house that something is done about it. I am grateful to the IDF and security forces for their quick action on this matter. Unfortunately the houses of other terrorists have been rebuilt and have yet to be re-demolished. Families who have lost loved ones in terror attacks should not have to beg for these demolitions to take place.”

The site of the home of the terrorist is on the location of another house that had previously been demolished by the IDF. That house was razed in 1990, as punishment for the terror activity of one of the brothers of Lubarsky’s killer. The IDF forbade the family from rebuilding the house, but that order was ignored as well.