JERUSALEM, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces demolished overnight between Wednesday and Thursday a house in the West Bank belonging to a Palestinian attacker who killed an Israeli Border Police female officer in July.
A military spokesperson said that the forces exploded the home of Adel Ankush in the Dier Abu Mash'al, north of Ramallah city, after it was sealed off last week.
Ankush and two other men carried out a knife-and-gun attack near East Jerusalem's Old City on July 15, killing Sergeant Major Hadas Malka, 23, and wounded four other policemen. The attackers, all aged 18, were shot dead by the police at the scene.
Ankush's family home was the last to be demolished after Israeli forces demolished the homes of Bra'a Salah and As'ama Ata, the other two attackers, last week.
The spokesperson said the destruction was carried out by army soldiers, Border Police officers, and the Civil Administration, an Israeli governing body in the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday, Israel demolished the two-storey family home of Omar al-Abed in the village of Kobar in the central West Bank. Al-Abed killed three members of an Israeli family in a settlement in a knife attack in July.
Israel has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes since it occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, as a punitive measure aimed at deterring Palestinians from carrying out attacks against Israelis.
In early 2005, a Defense Ministry committee concluded that the measure is ineffective, and Israel stopped the measure.
However, the government resumed the controversial practice in 2015 when facing a new wave of attacks.
The United States has denounced it as "counterproductive," while Palestinians and human rights organizations say it constitutes a collective punishment that leaves the relatives homeless.
