IDF demolishes suspects' homes

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed the homes of Hussam Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha early Monday and sealed the house of Marwan Kawasme. Israel has accused militants allied with the Palestinian political faction Hamas of abducting and killing the Jewish seminary students Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrah. They went missing on June 12 and the IDF discovered their bodies a couple of weeks later in the West Bank. Hamas officials have denied the accusations.

"Overnight, as part of the ongoing mission to combat terror in the region, security personnel demolished the residences of Hussam Kawasme, and Amar Abu Aysha, and sealed off the residence of Marwan Kawasme in Hebron," the IDF announced in a statement released Monday.

Following the teenagers' disappearances, the IDF launched a manhunt, arresting hundreds of Palestinians and killing several in protests and scuffles. Immediately after the discovery of the bodies, three Israelis killed a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khudair, in Jerusalem in a suspected revenge murder.

The IDF took the 40-year-old Hussam Kawasme into custody in July but only announced his arrest this month; the other two remain missing. According to the document, Kawasme, whom the IDF has yet to indict, had admitted to helping to organize the kidnapping of the three Israeli youths, securing funding from Hamas and buying weapons which he passed on to the two other suspects.

'It is racist'

Abu Khudair's father, Hussein, has demanded equal justice under Israeli law for Mohammed's killers, saying the IDF should destroy their homes as well. He said he would again call for the demolition of the homes of the three suspected killers - two of them minors - when their trial resumes next month.

"There is no justice in Israeli law," Hussein Abu Khudair told the news agency Reuters on Monday. "It is racist. I have been calling for the demolition of houses of those who killed Mohammed."

In the fighting in the Gaza Strip (pictured) that followed the killings, the crackdown and rocket fire by militants allied with the Hamas movement, a total of 2,016 people have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. Among the dead are 541 children, 250 women and 95 elderly men - about 44 percent of the victims, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Sixty-four IDF soldiers died in combat in Gaza and rocket fire into Israel from Gaza killed three civilians.

mkg/msh (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)