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oPt

Broken homes: Addressing the impact of house demolitions on Palestinian children & families

Attachments

1 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem and Gaza, it is estimated that Israeli civil and military authorities have destroyed 24,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT). The rate of house demolitions has risen significantly since the second Intifada began in September 2000 and, as this study shows, house demolitions have become a major cause of forced displacement in the OPT.

When a home is demolished, a family loses both the house as a financial asset and often the property inside it. For the families surveyed in this study these losses respectively totalled an average of approximately $105,090 and $51,261 per family.

But the impact goes beyond loss of physical property and economic opportunity. This report is unique in the connection it makes between the impact of house demolitions on children and their families, and the responsibility of duty bearers to protect and assist.

Using structured mental health questionnaires, semi-structured questionnaires of the family's demolition experience and socioeconomic conditions, and open interviews with families, this study depicts a portrait of Palestinian families who have experienced house demolitions. This depiction enables the humanitarian community to better advocate for an end to demolitions and, in the interim, put in place a comprehensive and coordinated response for families who are facing displacement due to demolition or other factors.

The main findings of the study were:

- House demolitions cause displacement. Fifty-seven percent of 56 families surveyed never returned to their original residences. Those who did return, on average, spent over a year displaced before returning.

- House demolitions are followed by long periods of instability for the family, with over half of the families who responded taking at least two years to find a permanent residence.

- At the time of interviewing, the average monthly income of families surveyed was NIS1,561(USD 355) - well below both the absolute (deep) and relative poverty lines.

- Compared to children of similar demographics living in the same geographical locations, children who have had their home demolished fare significantly worse on a range of mental health indicators, including: withdrawal, somatic complaints, depression/anxiety, social difficulties, higher rates of delusional, obsessive, compulsive and psychotic thoughts, attention difficulties, delinquency, violent behaviour - even six months after the demolition.

- Families also report deterioration in children's educational achievement and ability to study.

- A fundamental factor affecting the child's mental health following demolition is the psychological state of the parents, yet one-third of the parents were in danger of developing mental health disorders and some reported that the demolition precipitated a decline in their physical health also.

- The social support that parents receive and their ability to employ coping strategies for themselves and their children (usually determined by proximity to the original home and the family's cultivated network of resources) may mitigate some of the detrimental effects.

- Maintaining the mother's mental health is particularly crucial for children under 12.