At least two family members were arrested and a number of others beaten Wednesday when the Israeli military carried out a pre-dawn operation to destroy a newly built home in occupied East Jerusalem.

Jamal Abu Khdeir described months of construction on his $85,000 dream home, in the Shufat District, a dwelling big enough for his entire extended family of 27 members to live together. That became a nightmare when Israeli troops and bulldozers showed up before dawn.

Abu Khdeir was given no prior notice the troops were coming, and after chasing everyone out, the Israeli military had the whole building leveled within a matter of minutes. At that point they turned on complaining family members, quickly getting into a fight with them, eventually arresting two of them.

Jerusalem police claimed no knowledge of the incident, which was apparently wholly a military operation. Locals reported this was one of two houses leveled in separate Palestinian neighborhoods.

The presumption is that the home didn’t have a defense ministry permit for the construction, which is almost certainly the case since the defense ministry virtually never allows Palestinians to build new buildings. It’s unclear why the family wasn’t given advanced notice however, as usually the Israeli military likes to brag up their intentions to demolish Palestinian homes beforehand.