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New Left Review 19, January-February 2003
Slicing through the alleys and markets of the West Bank, Israeli bulldozers as the cutting edge of today’s counter-insurgency tactics—the destruction of houses, camps and townships as condition of political and ethnic sweeps.
STEPHEN GRAHAM
LESSONS IN URBICIDE
In April 2002 the Israeli Defence Force bulldozed a 40,000 square-metre area in the centre of the Jenin refugee camp in the Northern West Bank. A UN report estimated that some 52 Palestinians were killed in the attack, about half of them civilians. In a detailed investigation, Human Rights Watch found that several civilians, including a disabled man, were crushed to death in their homes, because Israeli forces failed to allow relatives time to help them escape; others were used as human shields by the advancing Israelis. Operation Defensive Shield left 140 multi-family housing blocks completely destroyed, 1,500 damaged, and some 4,000 residents homeless, out of a population of 14,000. [1] During the operation, lesser demolitions were also carried out in Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah. Destruction of material infrastructure and cultural and administrative facilities was also widespread.
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