‘They demolished my house, imprisoned me’: Palestinian women face escalating abuses
Haneen Fanoun
Fayha Shalash reports in The Palestine Chronicle on 26 August 2026:
Haneen Fanoun, 39, still weeps in a small rented apartment after her two-story house in Nahalin, west of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank, was demolished.
But what pains her is not only the loss of the home she spent years building and finally moved into in 2012. She is also haunted by the arrest, beatings, and humiliation she endured at the hands of the Israeli army during the demolition.
Haneen’s story reflects the reality faced by Palestinian women across the occupied West Bank, where they are subjected to numerous forms of harassment and abuse by Israeli soldiers and settlers and deprived of their most basic rights.
These violations range from arrests to physical assaults. More recently, the Israeli army has also pursued a deliberate policy against pregnant Palestinian women by obstructing their access to hospitals and healthcare centers at military checkpoints scattered throughout the West Bank, turning such obstruction into a systematic practice.
Tears of Anguish
In 2022, the Israeli army issued Haneen and her family of seven a stop-work order for their home in the town of Nahalin, claiming that the house lacked a permit. Despite submitting all the required paperwork, the family was denied a permit. However, the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank assured them that their home would not be demolished because they had complied with the stop-work order.
Then, on July 22, the Israeli army suddenly stormed Nahalin and surrounded Haneen’s home, preparing to demolish it without warning.
She ran outside, screaming at the soldiers and hoping they would take pity on her and stop the demolition.