Saeed Daour watched the scenario repeat itself in his neighborhood of Beit Lahiya, just a few hundred yards from the Jewish settlement of Dugit. Dreading that he would meet the same fate, he said he struggled to keep militants off his land.
But on Saturday morning, somebody slipped through Daour's farm, a bomb blew up an Israeli tank nearby, and within hours, the bulldozers showed up at his doorstep.
The Israeli military destroys houses of Palestinian militants as a deterrent, believing that if militants see that their families will suffer, they will think twice about carrying out attacks. Also, the military regularly knocks down structures where attackers are suspected of staging their bombing or gunfire assaults.
From the time fighting erupted in September 2000 until the end of January, the Israeli army had demolished 1,365 houses in Gaza, including 65 in Beit Lahiya.
Early on Saturday morning, a bomb ripped through an Israeli tank just a few hundred yards from Daour's farm, killing all four soldiers inside. The violent Islamic movement Hamas took responsibility for the blast.
Daour said the blast woke him, and he quickly dressed as his wife Nada stood guard over the house. The Israeli army, he said, gave his wife two minutes to collect her personal belongings before knocking the structure down.
By Saturday afternoon, Daour's single-story home, his brothers' two adjoining homes, and the family's greenhouses were a pile of concrete and wood rubble, his strawberry fields left in ruins.
"Almost every day, people were coming through here and we tried to kick them out," Daour said as he picked through the rubble Sunday morning. "There's nobody along the border who doesn't struggle with keeping (militants) off their lands."
The army said the three houses on Daour's property were a base for shooting attacks and were probably used for planting the deadly bomb. But Daour insisted he has no connection to the incident, nor to Hamas.
"How could I be a Hamas supporter?" Daour said. "I have (Israeli military) security clearance and go to (the Israeli city of) Beersheva all the time. I need this for my business."
Just across the street, Rafiq Abu Halim, 26, watched his home being demolished after a suicide bomber ran through his property and killed two Israeli soldiers in October. And just a few yards away, another farm was demolished and its greenhouses destroyed in a similar incident.
Hamas officials say the destruction of houses is just part of the conflict, and Palestinians are strong enough to continue their resistance. Hamas offers a few hundred dollars in assistance to families whose homes have been destroyed.
But Daour expects it will take him years to rebuild his $36,000 home.
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