Two days after being arrested by Israeli soldiers, a Palestinian resident of Jenin, Majdi Abu Al-Heija, was released last Thursday from Megiddo prison and went back to his West Bank hometown. However, he was unable to return home because his house was demolished by Israeli security forces the same night he was arrested, during what they claimed was a search for a suspect hiding there.

A large contingent of Israeli security forces surrounded the house on Monday (August 31). The Lau missiles and bulldozers brought to the scene were evidence that troops from the Israel Defense Forces, along with forces from the police counterterrorism unit and the Shin Bet security force, planned to flush out a suspect holed up in a building. Dubbed the “pressure cooker,” this tactic involves gradually demolishing the building in an effort to force a suspect to give himself up – or die in the process.

Abu-Heija’s unusually prompt release may be an indication that he was not the target of the search. No suspect was found in the ruins of his demolished house, also home to his wife, Alia, and their five children, who range in age from a 16-month-old daughter to a son who is almost 14.

Alia Abu Al-Heija told Haaretz that before the demolition began, she and her mother-in-law had begged a Shin Bet officer to allow them to enter the house “as a human shield,” as she put it: to prove to him that no one was hiding in her home. The officer, "who spoke Arabic better than I do," she said, insisted that the forces would demolish the structure. "I worked on the house for 9 years and you'll destroy it," she told him, in vain.

For its part, the Shin Bet gave the following response to a query from Haaretz about the raid and the demolition: “On the night of August 31, 2015, an operation to arrest wanted suspects was carried out in the Jenin area. In the course of the operation, one of the members of the force was shot [by friendly fire – A.H.]; pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails were also thrown at it. During the action, for operational reasons, and after consultations among all of the security forces at the scene, Majdi Abu Al-Heija’s house was demolished.

"Other than what is being stated here, the Shin Bet does not comment on details relating to the security forces’ operational activities. The claims made by family members for this news report do not reflect, to put it mildly, how events transpired on the ground.”

The IDF Spokesman commented: “In the case in question, a joint security-force operation was carried out to arrest a senior terrorist target. Based on prior information and an assessment that an armed and dangerous terrorist was involved, the decision was made to demolish the house, after taking a number of steps to allow the terrorist to turn himself in.”

'Throwing' the baby

On that Monday evening, members of the Abu Al-Heija family were sitting in the yard of their home in Jenin’s Al-Hadaf neighborhood, about a kilometer from the town's refugee camp. They were joined by Majdi Abu Al-Heija’s mother, along with his brother, the brother’s wife and their baby. Around 9 P.M. increasingly loud sounds of gunfire and shouting were heard from the direction of the refugee camp. The Abu Al-Heija family rushed inside the house, not suspecting that they were the target of a military operation.

Majdi Abu Al-Heija had been released from administrative detention – that is, detention without trial – 10 years ago; since then he has occupied himself with his children, his work at the Jenin municipality and tending to his new house.

After hearing the commotion from the refugee camp and entering the house, announcements were made on loudspeakers demanding that Majdi come out and give himself up, or be shot. He left with his hands up followed by the rest of the family.

The males, including the teenage son, Suhaib, were told to strip to their underwear. Alia Abu Al-Heija said she did as she was told and threw her purse aside. However, she also recounted that, in what she said she thought was an effort to test her nerves, the Shin Bet officer then told her to “throw” the baby whom she was carrying, but she refused.

The family members were then taken to the partially finished second floor of a neighbor's home. The women were put in a bathroom, from which they were repeatedly taken out for questioning, reportedly at gunpoint.

"We want the man who is hiding in your house," the soldiers and interrogators demanded. "I explained that there was nobody there," Alia told Haaretz.

Majdi and his brother and son were taken to separate rooms in the neighbor’s house and held there for hours. After midnight the security forces began shelling the Abu-Heija home with Lau missiles, which were fired from the roof of the house in which they were being held.

“The soldiers told us to cover our ears, and they covered their ears as well, and when the missiles were fired, the soldiers let out horrible screams,” she recounted.

After each missile was fired, the soldiers shined lights on the Abu-Heija house to inspect it. No suspect emerged.

Before 6 A.M., she was taken to a room where she found her son nearly naked, and bound so that his body was thrust forward; he was held in that painful position for what she estimated to be about six hours. She told Haaretz that the Shin Bet officer, who the Jenin people know as Aharon, had told her: “With all due respect, you’re a liar. Suhaib said someone is hiding in the house.” But upon hearing the officer, her son said: "You are the liar."

The bulldozers completed the destruction of the house and then Majdi Abu Al-Heija was arrested. That same day his family learned that he was being held at Megiddo prison in the north. The fact that he was not taken for further questioning by the Shin Bet to the Kishon interrogation facility was a source of relief. In their opinion, this was the best indication that the IDF and Shin Bet understood that the operation at the house was based on faulty information.

And yet they did not expect Majdi Abu Al-Heija’s release after just two days. He showed up at his widowed mother’s home, recounting that he was released despite a military prosecutor’s request that his detention be extended for another eight days. The military judge handling the case had said there was nothing in the file against him and ordered him to be released.

The house also had a full water tank that was damaged by a shell during the military raid, releasing the water, Alia Abu Al-Heija told Haaretz. They had a small, adjoining grocery store that had provided extra income to the family and it was gone as well, she added. But she began crying only when she spoke about the olive trees in the yard that had been uprooted by the Israeli bulldozers.